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Showing posts with label failed Republican policies. Show all posts
Showing posts with label failed Republican policies. Show all posts
Tuesday, November 8, 2016
Thursday, October 27, 2016
We Have To Let Republicans Know This Is Unacceptable
So we're on the verge of electing the first female president and already, it seems some Republicans have learned nothing. I just saw this article.
They just don't get it.
They did this with Bill Clinton, the entire time he was in office. It got them nothing. Worse, it wasted time, energy and millions of our American tax dollars. They've been obstructing President Obama these full 8 years and that got them and the nation nothing.
Check out these headlines.
GOP Congressman Already Floating
Impeachment For Hillary Clinton
They just don't get it.
They themselves got nothing, nothing whatever, out of their 7--count them, 7 Benghazi investigations. Nothing. There was no crime, no guilt.
Meanwhile, not only did America and Americans get nothing from all these investigations, we blew through millions of dollars, again, and wasted time, energy and effort that could and should have otherwise been spent on America's issues.
They just seem intent on not learning.
It's also rumored that these Republicans intend to block any and all candidates for the Supreme Court Mrs. Clinton will propose, also.
It's also rumored that these Republicans intend to block any and all candidates for the Supreme Court Mrs. Clinton will propose, also.
They seem clearly intent on putting their political party first, to hell with the American people and our national issues and problems and possible solutions.
This has to stop. And we must demand it. We have to get on to the solutions to the nation's and people's issues.
Write your government representatives. Tell them the time and day for gridlock and obstruction and their "party first" is over.
Saturday, January 23, 2016
Republican Party and Right Wing in Freefall
I keep finding, by pure chance, more and yet more indications, at least weekly, of Right Wing and Republican Party splintering. So much so that even the word "splintering" doesn't seem strong enough to describe it. They seem to be nothing but attacking one another and tearing the party apart.
I just ran across a few examples today, again, by pure chance. All came from the site Mediaite today.Here's the first.
Here's the very Right Wing, very conservative, very Republican-supporting National Review attacking Donald Trump, really, and the people who support him, even though he's the frontrunner in the polls. How fantastic is that? Well, at least for the rest of us, anyway.
Here's the second internal attack within the Party I saw today:
Fox's Watters: National Review Writers 'Putting Pure Conservatism Over the Country'
Get that. Nearly unbelievable. Right Wing, ultra-conservative, Republican supporting Fox, attacking the, again, very Right Wing and Conservative and Republican Party supporting National Review, of all things, for being too conservative and, as it says, "putting pure Conservatism over..." the interests "...of the country."
And the third:
Again, a staunch Right Winger, Pat Buchanan, attacking a long time, staunch Right Wing media source for daring to criticize Donald Trump, one of the two, if not the most popular candidates for the presidency this year, in polling.
Here's the fallout of the National Review issue:
Here's the fallout of the National Review issue:
Finally, check out what some of the heads of the party took up:
GOP Civil War: Leading Conservatives Pen Massive Anti-Trump Manifesto
Conservative Writers Explain Anti-Trump Manifesto: 'Terrible Face of America to the World'
And of course they're correct. I can't even imagine Donald Trump as president. Who knows what horrors and gaffs would come from the man?
This is phenomenal, really. The Democratic Party and anyone not supporting the Republicans couldn't write or ask for anything better for this group. It's clear they are, for all practical purposes, self-destructing.
Darn the luck, huh?
Pass the popcorn.
Tuesday, January 12, 2016
Republicans in Jefferson City, At It Again
Yessir, Republican legislators in Jefferson City are at it again. They're writing and trying to pass very self-serving legislation, all in the guise of "protecting our vote." Here it is.
Missouri voter photo ID measures pass
House committee
Never mind that it's been proven, time and again, that there really is no significant problem with vote fraud of any kind.
How Voter ID Laws Are Being Used
to Disenfranchise
How Republicans Rig the Game
This is yet more un-American, Right Wing, Republican vote suppression and disenfranchisement of Americans. It helps them get and keep the poor, blacks, Hispanics, the elderly and physically-challenged, at minimum---read: possible Democratic Party voters---from voting.
It's not just wrong but deeply wrong and we need to fight this, we need to end it in America. They've been pushing these "voter ID" laws and gerrymandering for far too long. It all needs to end and we need to get started on it. We can and should tolerate this no longer.
Links:
Texas Voter ID Law Is Unconstitutional and Discriminates
Federal Court Rejects Texas' Voter ID Law As Unfair
What Was Governor Brownback Thinking?
There are so many times when one could have asked, in the last several years this precise question---Just what was Kansas Governor Sam Brownback thinking?
Like what was he thinking when he cut taxes for the wealthy and corporations in Kansas and put more of the burden on the middle and lower classes in that state as just one example? The list goes on and on from there.
But now, with his choice of giving the Kansas State of the State speech on the same day as President Obama's State of the Union speech?
Really. What could he have possibly been thinking?
The two speeches occurring on the same day brings automatic comparisons and contrasts you wouldn't think the Governor would want nor would want us to make. After all, we've got a successful president, in so many ways, and a Governor that's overseeing horrible state budgets, school budgets and other state budgets slashed, debt downgrade, deep unpopularity and on and on. It just seems to make even more clearly how really awful the Kansas Governor and his Right Wing, Republican, "trickle down" economic policies are and have been for the state and people.
It should actually be a fun, rather enlightening, political day.
Just, for Governor Brownback, not a positive one.
Links: What time is Obama's State of the Union?
Viewer's guide to Tuesday's State of the Union Address
Obama's last State of the Union will try to counter electorate's anger
Obama's State of the Union Address Seeks to Frame 2016 Race
St. Louis-area residents to attend Obama's State of the U
On Tonight's State of the Union
I have read no other, better, brief summary of President Obama's 2 terms as President and their relative success, like it or not, than what I saw last evening on Facebook from Professor/economist Robert Reich:
First, I think historians will judge it to be among the most successful – saving the U.S. economy from a second Great Depression, enacting the first almost-universal health insurance system (something neither FDR, nor Truman, JFK, LBJ, or Clinton could get done), finding and killing the person who engineered the worst terrorist act ever to occur on American soil, and, all the while, holding at bay the most disciplined, adamantly right-wing Republican Congress in history. The Obama administration has played the long game, and mostly won.
Second, Barack Obama as a person has exhibited extraordinary coolness under fire. No president in my lifetime has come under such relentless, scathing, disrespectful (often thinly-veiled racist) attack from political opponents and opportunistic pundits, and yet he has never wavered from the dignified tone he set for himself and his presidency at the outset.
Third, this administration has not been marred by scandal – no revelations of self-dealing by high officials, no sexual exploits, no illegal political payoffs, no secret and illicit deals. To laud a presidency for its lack of scandal may be a sad commentary on our era, but given the harshness and meanness of politics it is nonetheless a significant achievement.
It is not all roses. I won’t easily forgive the mass deportations, the early emphasis on deficit-reduction, the compromises on civil liberties, the absurd Trans Pacific Partnership, or the failure to put tough conditions on Wall Street banks that got bailed out. The Administration has been way too kind to big corporations and Wall Street. Fifty years ago we would have considered Obama a liberal Republican.
But given the times and the circumstances, he has done remarkably well. That’s a provisional verdict, of course; there’s still a year to go.
So State of the Union?
Bring it on.
Sunday, August 2, 2015
Right Wing Experiments
Right wing socio-economic experiments Republicans, Conservatives and the Right Wing have wrought for and on America and Americans in the last 30 or so years:
Trickle down - 35 years of experience - total failure, only benefits those who are supposed to trickle it down. But it benefits them a lot and they pay to maintain it.
Citizens United (unlimited campaign contributions) - monumental failure in only a few years. Even right wingers don't like it, although they are using it. Un-American, undemocratic - the rich are buying elections.
Drug testing for welfare recipients - a total boon for the drug testing industry and the politicians invested in it. The return on investment is profoundly negative in the states doing it - a huge waste of public money, in other words. Poor people don't have money for drugs - kinda simple, isn't it?
Charter schools - scandal after scandal wherever these have been foisted on the public. A horrible way to educate your kids, unless you're extremely careful. Another profitable right wing cause, however. Lots of cash to their benefactors.
More, but you get the idea.
End these failed right wing social experiments. They've gone on too long as it is.
From high school and Facebook friend Brian Rock.
Wednesday, June 10, 2015
How Much More Can----and Will---Kansans Take?
Everything Republican Governor Sam Brownback and his political party cohorts have touched, fiscally, financially and dealing with taxes, it seems, have turned to debt and red ink.
We've all been following them for these few years now and watched the debt rating be downgraded and debts rise and budgets be slashed, sure. But the latest budget cuts, now to the schools, are being the unkindest and even worst, the most painful and even hopeless, of all.
I saw this last evening:
And that, I thought, was horrible, for one not-that-large a school district.
But then I saw this:
Schools could lose $197 million under spending
cut scenario
Truly horrible.
Just short of 200 million dollars, nearly one quarter of a billion dollars, to be cut from the school budgets across the state.
How do you have hope for your children, for the future, for your state, if you don't--hell, can't--invest in the next generations?
Sunday, June 7, 2015
Jobs Bills From This Congress?
Bueller? Bueller?
Here's hoping.
We all know Americans need the jobs. And our infrastructure needs the updating and improving. And the economy needs the boost, all three, sure.
But these people don't want America to do well unless or until one of their own is back in the White House. Until then, screw you, America. You have to wait.
The Republican Party comes before the nation to Republicans, let there be no doubt. There is no better proof than this.
Wednesday, January 14, 2015
The Current Republican Congressional Session (guest post)
"Look at the priorities of the new Republican congressional – the Keystone XL Pipeline, the Trans-Pacific Trade agreement, tax cuts for big corporations and the wealthy, rollbacks of Dodd-Frank regulations on Wall Street, cutbacks on Medicare and Medicaid and Social Security, and decimating the Affordable Care Act – and connect the dots. Republicans want the public to think the central issue of our time is the size of government. Wrong. The central issue of our time is who government is for. Every one of their initiatives advances big corporations and Wall Street, and worsens or weakens everyone else.'
--Robert Reich, economist, author, professor
Saturday, January 10, 2015
Kansas, Republicans and Budgets in the News
Yes, once again, Kansas, Kansas Republicans and their budget ideas are in the news. Just for all the wrong reasons:
Republicans are the real wealth redistributors
Kansas and other state governments are seizing money from middle-class workers to finance tax cuts for the wealthy
Their long-discredited ideas, inherited from Ronnie the Raygun and all that "trickle down" ideas and nonsense put Kansas infamously in debt and the news while California, doing exactly the opposite, is taking care of its debts, paying its bills, rebuilding infrastructure and paving a positive path to the future:
Welcome to Brownbackistan:
In 2008, then-candidate Barack Obama was lambasted for supposedly endorsing policies of wealth redistribution. The right feared that under an Obama presidency, Washington would use federal power to take money from some Americans and give it to others. Yet, only a few years later, the most explicit examples of such redistribution are happening in the states, and often at the urging of Republicans.
The most illustrative example began in 2012, when Kansas’ Republican Gov. Sam Brownback signed a landmark bill that delivered big tax cuts to high-income earners and businesses. Less than two years after that tax cut, the state’s income tax revenues plummeted by a quarter-billion dollars — and now Brownback is pushing to use money for public employees’ pensions to instead cover the state’s ensuing budget shortfalls.
Brownback’s proposal: Slash the state’s required pension contribution by $40 million to balance the state budget, even though Kansas already has one of the worst-funded pension systems in the nation.
Brownback defended his proposal to take money from middle-class state workers and use it to effectively finance his tax cuts for the wealthy. He told the Wichita Eagle: “It’s kind of, uh, well where are you going to go for the funds? And I don’t like it, but it’s kind of what’s your other option if you don’t hit K-12 and higher ed with allotments?”
See, if government officials, using our government, take money from the lower and middle and working classes and give it to the already-wealthy and corporations, it's okay. It's all well and good. In fact, it's "good business sense" by their way of thinking.
But try taking money from the wealthy and those same corporations and giving it to the middle, lower and working classes? Why, that's WEALTH REDISTRIBUTION! Worse, it's Communism! It's Socialism! It's "un-American"!
What's additionally ironic about all this is that the Kansas governor did all this tax slashing and attempts at redistribution of wealth---all on the backs and pocketbooks of the Kansas people--in his now clearly vain attempts to gain the presidency, it's clear. Fortunately, that's one thing that won't go any further, anyway, what with the financial, economic and debt debacles he's created in his home state now.
That, in fact, is the only positive thing to come out of Kansas' mess.
Links:
How Kansas and California Debunked the GOP's Tax Cuts Argument
Friday, January 2, 2015
Sunday, December 28, 2014
Kansas' Money Solution?
It's well known now that Kansas Republican Governor Sam Brownback and all his political party cohorts over in Topeka at the state capitol screwed up their state's budget with "trickle down economics" ideas--that is, slashing tax rates and then waiting for tax coffers to fill, instead, because business would (somehow) rather magically appear and, they said, even increase.
Now, we see, yet again, how this idea is a terrible and non-working idea. Instead of bringing in more money, it actually does just the opposite. Kansas now needs approximately 280 million dollars for its budget because of this terribly failed Republican idea, imposed on Kansas and Kansans.
So, a possible solution?
Perhaps Kansas needs to look no further than next door, to Colorado:
Crime down and revenue up in Colorado since start of Marijuana Legalization
Crime in Colorado’s capital city, Denver, has dropped by more than a tenth, local law enforcement data reveals, and the state as a whole is expected to collect around $30 million in revenue this year as a result of weed taxes.
Economically speaking, rolling back the weed ban in Colorado has done wonders as well. The Associated Press reported this week that nearly $19 million in recreational marijuana was sold throughout the state in just the month of March, with $1.9 million of that going immediately to Denver to be divvied up by lawmakers to various state programs.
By the end of the year, weed taxes are expected to net Colorado around $30 million, which as of this week will be used on a plan that puts that money into mostly child drug use prevention and outreach, the AP reported, which means more school nurses and public education efforts funded by marijuana excises. The New York Times reported this week that those taxes have so far provided the state with around $12.6 million. According to Reuters, the latest year-end projection in total revenue generated is around $98 million—exceeding the state’s original estimate by 40 percent.
Would it be a total panacea for the Jayhawks? No, certainly not. Colorado is a much more populated state so the revenue wouldn't be as large. But could it help? Colorado's example seems to show it would, yes.
It would bring in more money for the state and it could free up the police to work on other, more important issues and problems, including a reduction in crime and crime rates.
At any rate, Kansas needs solutions to their money problems, again, thanks to Sam Brownback and all the Republicans in the Statehouse and all those who elected them into office.
This could be a not-so-small part of that solution and get the side benefit of possibly lowering crime, too.
Tuesday, December 16, 2014
Friday, December 5, 2014
Sunday, November 30, 2014
The Upcoming Republican Tax Agenda (guest post
From economist, columnist Robert Reich today---and it's not good for you or me or America:
Corporate tax "reform" is high on the Republican agenda because the GOP's corporate patrons are demanding payoff from their investments in the 2014 election. Watch your wallets. Here are the four biggest right-wing whoppers about corporate taxes:
1. The U.S. corporate tax rate of 35% is one of the highest among advanced countries. True but misleading. The effective corporate income-tax rate – what corporations actually pay after all deductions, credits, and loopholes – is 27.7%, close to the average of all rich countries (27.2%).
2. Today's corporate tax rate is high by historic standards. Baloney. In the 1950s it was over 50%.
3. The corporate tax reduces corporate profits, which makes it harder for corporations to hire. Wrong. Corporate profits today are the highest they've been since World War II as a percentage of the economy.
4. Lowering the corporate income-tax would spur economic growth. Baloney. There's no relation between corporate tax rates and growth. In the 1950s and 60s, when the corporate tax was over 50%, the economy grew faster (at an annual average rate of 3.9%) than it has since the rate was reduced.
Once more, the Republicans make it clear they're for the wealthy and corporations, not the middle and lower classes, not for working America. In short, then, not for America, overall.
Thursday, November 20, 2014
Quote of the day -- from "Give 'em Hell, Harry"
“The Republicans … will try to make people believe that everything the Government has done for the country is socialism. They will go to the people and say: "Did you see that social security check you received the other day—you thought that was good for you, didn't you? That's just too bad! That's nothing in the world but socialism. Did you see that new flood control dam the Government is building over there for the protection of your property? Sorry—that's awful socialism! That new hospital that they are building is socialism. Price supports, more socialism for the farmers! Minimum wage laws? Socialism for labor! Socialism is bad for you, my friend. Everybody knows that. And here you are, with your new car, and your home, and better opportunities for the kids, and a television set—you are just surrounded by socialism! Now the Republicans say, ‘That's a terrible thing, my friend, and the only way out of this sinkhole of socialism is to vote for the Republican ticket.’"
--President Harry S. Truman
Tuesday, October 28, 2014
Monday, September 29, 2014
The Blatant Immorality of America's Economic System (guest post)
When Republicans talk about morality, they talk about God and redemption. But they don't mention the immorality of one in five of American children being impoverished, of cuts in food stamps that are causing many to go hungry, and of reduced education funding that’s condemning them to lousy schools. They don't talk about the immorality of declining worker incomes when corporations are making record profits and CEOs are taking home record pay. They leave out the immorality of billionaires flooding our democracy with money to elect candidates that will make them even richer. We are in a moral crisis but it has nothing to do with private redemption. It is a crisis of public morality, and the redemption of America.
--Robert Reich, American political economist, professor, author, and political commentator
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