Category Archives: Republicans

Why We Still Sacrifice Our Young

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Barbaric ancient cultures ritually sacrificed their young to appease the gods. In the remoteness of those behaviors we cloak our own ritual instincts to sacrifice our youth. First, let me say that my own personal perspective on this has been shaped by first-hand experience of the Vietnam War that effectively destroyed both of my older brother’s lives. I am fascinated with how we sabotage ourselves in our truths and guarantee that our nemesis will once again rule the day. How do we sacrifice our young?

Watching Vice-president Biden yesterday talk about love of country in the heroic sacrifice of our warriors enraged me. The mistakes of President Obama’s predecessors have been blessed and sanctified in his administration’s current support of the Afghanistan war. These mistakes are no longer thought in terms of Bush administration tragedies but the old mantle of “defending freedom” has once again been cast over the irrevocable tragedy of state sanctioned killing of our youth. In Vietnam, the thought of a tragic mistake was the elephant in the room that our rhetoric always had to maneuver itself against. Just as the Catholic Church has never officially acknowledged that the earth is round but killed it with centuries of rhetorical hubris, the tragic sacrifice of our young in Iraq and now Afghanistan, started by Bush’s admitted mistake in Iraq, has been rhetorically redeemed into a “defense of freedom”, a “heroic sacrifice for the survival of our country”. The very same politicians that propagate these tragedies are the ones that gush their priestly, sanctimonious justifications for why these sacrifices had to be.

The truth, the elephant would speak if we let it, is that we blundered into nation building and forcing our values on cultures that at best have ambivalent judgments about our occupation and at worst fuel the fires of the holy war against the great satin (us). Our politicians tell us all the theological edicts that sanction our violence by a loving god and a country that stands for unquestionable truth. We lure our young into the military with commercials that play on their heroic fantasies and need for a job. They naively enter a machine that dashes their youthful ideals and deposits them in an alien culture with weapons and a mantra of kill or be killed. Families are torn apart and destroyed for generations. “Collateral damage” is the name for the rhetorical elephant that kills hundreds of thousands of women, children and “non combatants”. Many veterans that return find they must justify themselves and get locked into war hawkish justifications for future conflicts. They find conservative, Republican ideology as their life-long companion. The church ensures its future and brainwashing propagates into its young. The business of war is sealed in a tomb of sanctimonious rhetoric.

We could never admit that we have wasted our children’s youth and futures on a lie. That would rob our false god of its fire and fury. We would have to live in the shadows of Mordor, the dole drums of the under-world, the loss of meaning, the emptiness of nihilism. Nihilism is the result of the bankruptcy of our truths, our metaphysics, and our reasons for being. The chasm of our underside is opened by the radical belief in our holiness. The negative fascination of our truths stares into the void and the void stares back into our truths. We must continually feed the dragon or it will eat us. The gods must be appeased and our youth are our sacrificial lambs.

I have written elsewhere (http://mixermuse.com/blog/2010/01/08/war-on-terrorism/) on this blog how I think criminal situations could be dealt with that are propagated and fueled where no law exists, both best case and worst case, without playing these psychological-sociological games on ourselves so I will not re-state how we could deal with Iraq and Afghanistan in a saner, rational and targeted approach. In this essay, I simply want to expose how we symbolically and symbiotically feed on ourselves by a lack of philosophical, critical reflection. Folks, if our gods could save us from ourselves they would have centuries ago. The truth is, as Nietzsche prophesized, is that our good and evil is hopelessly enmeshed in a historically destructive dance that can only be compared to an act of god, an non-human tornado, a thirst that can never be quenched but will drink itself into oblivion on the sands of the desert. Will the United States be remembered thousands of years from now as a step away from humankind’s barbaric past or just another historical example of an Egypt or Rome that lost itself in its own dizzy heights and crashed into yet another heap of historical ash? All the while there are those of us that live in the shadows of death of our loved ones while the politicians blather on about our virtues and continue to tragically and mistakenly feed the beast.

My Email to the Attorney General of Colorado

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If you would like to send an email, here is the address:

attorney.general@state.co.us

Dear Mr. Sutthers,

I know you really believe in what you are doing with this law suit against the Federal Government. I know you also know that your opposition believes that this is merely a political vendetta. Obviously, nothing I can say will change your mind but I would like you to keep one thing in your mind while you are pursuing this case:

– Colorado is looking at laying off a lot of teachers in the next few years

– State budgets having been teetering on failure for quite some time

-Every fifty thousand dollars you spend on this case is a teacher that will get laid off and innumerable children that will suffer long term consequences

I hope you have resolved this issue in your mind because this is the brute fact that will proceed from your action. I, for one, will be looking intensely into what is being spent on this venture and I know many others will as well. Please act wisely as this involves more than your anger or merely your interpretation of the law – look realistically at the chance of winning the case or just making headlines at the cost of teacher’s jobs…

“I paid for my Social Security and Medicare. I don’t take government handouts.”

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Yea, you paid some money into these programs and you keep telling yourself you are not part of the BIG government program and not being totally selfish but think about this:

1. Social Security and Medicare ARE big Federal Government programs largely done by Democrats with Republicans calling it Socialism and BIG government totalitarianism. They said it was not American for the government to force them to pay for these programs. Republicans have been trying to get rid of these programs ever since. Both Medicare Advantage and Medicare Part D (prescription drug plan) were Republican plans that were gifts to insurance companies and contributed as much or more to the deficit than the new Health Care Reform package will.

Medicare Advantage does not offer any new benefits over basic Medicare without increased premiums and costs the government 14% more than the same benefits offered in basic Medicare. For the same benefits, Medicare Advantage hands out wads of case to private insurance companies to offer the same benefits as basic Medicare.

The prescription drug plan prohibits cost negations based on huge quantities that the government purchases. Bulk negotiations are regularly done in private business but the Republicans in the Bush administration wanted to make sure the drug companies got a sweetheart deal that cost you as much money over the next ten years as the cost of the Health Reform Bill.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/12/opinion/12krugman.html
http://www.americansforcoordinatedhealthcare.org/the_next_healthcare_battle_cutting_medicare_advantage/pid:5

2. As an older person you are part of a high risk insurance pool. Before these programs you could not get insurance. Many older people died on the street. Private insurance companies could not make a profit on you. The cost to insure you was more than they made on premiums. The situation is even more severe now that the cost of medical care has been increasing much faster than inflation. The money you paid into these programs would not come close to covering the costs that you have accumulated for the following reasons:

a) One of the causes for the projected deficits is that the number of workers paying taxes compared to the number of people receiving benefits has fallen and is projected to fall further.

b) Increase in life expectancy without a comparable increase in the retirement age:

– Since Social Security began paying benefits in 1940, the life expectancy of the average 65-year old male and female has gone up 40% and 45% respectively.

– Benefits and taxes are automatically indexed on an annual basis to compensate for inflation and wage growth. The retirement age is not indexed to compensate for increased life expectancy.

c) The higher birth rate of the baby boom generation compared to the birth rates of succeeding generations:

– In 1960 (during the baby boom), the average birth rate per woman was 3.6. By 1975, the average birth rate had fallen to 1.77. As of 2004, it is at 2.05.

d) The increasing number of people receiving disability benefits:

– Between 1960 and 2005, the U.S. population grew by 59%. During the same period, the number of people receiving disability benefits increased by 1,109%.

e) Health care cost have increased dramatically more than what the projected cost increases

http://www.justfacts.com/socialsecurity.basics.asp
http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/102xx/doc10297/06-25-LTBO.pdf

The bottom line is that you are drawing out more than you paid in. You can complain about the Federal Government all you want but you would not have any health care without the government. The numbers do not work.

3. A lot of you are in programs you never paid into like Part D (prescription drugs). My dad does not need part D because he is on a prescription drug program for veterans of WW2. He never paid into this but he is a big Republican and thinks he is not on a government program – he says he has never taken anything from the government.

4. If the commerce clause the Republicans are touting is correct then get ready to get rid of Social Security and Medicare because the big, bad government forces you to pay into it.

5. If we do nothing the deficit will rise 143 billion dollars more over the next 10 years than if we have the Health Care Reform Act according to the CBO. Health Care Reform costs less than we will pay if we do nothing. The total cost of the Health Reform Act is the same as the cost of Part D over the next 10 years and closes the doughnut hole.

http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/113xx/doc11379/Manager’sAmendmenttoReconciliationProposal.pdf

I don’t know how to get through these rationalizations and justifications based on pure fantasy but I will tell you that your blindness conveniently keeps you from seeing your selfishness, greediness and the violence you are doing to others that do not have your government benefits. How does it feel to be a hypocrite?

The “Tea Party”?

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The Tea Party got its name from the Boston Tea Party.  Initially, their point was that there should be no taxation without representation.   They identified with the patriots.  Now, they like to equivocate the monarchy of England during the Revolutionary War with today’s Federal Government.   Do you see a difference?  A monarchy is NOT elected but our government (which includes the Federal Government) is elected by a majority of the people in our country.  Hey, Tea Partiers, we got the government we elected – you lost. 

Real patriots advocated democracy in the face of totalitarianism.  Terrorists advocate senseless violence in the face of democracy.  What side are you gun toting, reloading, cleaning fools on?  The rest of us pay taxes for a military and police to deal with your type.  Go ahead – go down in a blaze of ignorance – the gene pool will be better off.

And, guess what…we think the tax burden will get shifted from the middle income groups the Republicans administrations gave us to big corporations and rich folks.  Oh, I know they like to threaten that they will leave the country or pass the cost on to everyone else but I call that intimidation and black mail.  I have faith that capitalism and competition will leave those that act on these threats in the ranks of the has-beens and entrepreneurs will rise to take the spoils.  Don’t continue to be pawns of big money marketing.  They would have you act against your own interests so they come out ahead. 

Oh, and if you are on Social Security and Medicare and are against Health Care Reform you are selfish and nasty.  You are part of the problem and I think you are responsible for the death of thousands of men, women and children that have died in this country from no and/or inadequate health care.  I see faces of children when it comes to health care reform.  You and your politicians fought CHIPS and health care for decades and I see children dying from it.  If you have the gall to call yourself “pro-life” on top of this you are hopelessly lost.  Why don’t you give age the face of grace, wisdom and virtue not pettiness and hypocrisy?

The Democrats Filibustered the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Performed Southern Lynching

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Next time you hear this please do NOT let them get away from the “rest of the story”.  Both statements above are true.  After the Civil War, Southerners hated Republicans (remember Lincoln).  They also fought against blacks in the Civil War.  The Union used Northern blacks and Southern blacks that escaped slavery.  This is why Southerners were Democrats after the Civil War in large numbers.  In 1964, the Dixiecrats (Southern Democrats) hated integration (remember busing).  They opposed Civil Rights in large numbers.  The real issue with Civil Rights was NOT Democrat versus Republican – it was North versus South.   See the numbers folks: http://mixermuse.com/blog/2009/12/15/of-all-the-varieties-of-virtues-liberalism-is-the-most-beloved-aristotle/ .

After the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Dixiecrats joined the Republican Party in mass.  Why do you think they did this?  They found their true ideological home with the Republicans.  The big, bad, evil Federal Government was forcing their kids to go to school with blacks.  Many states in the South are still very Republican.  If Civil Rights happened today without everything that has happened since 1964, the Republicans in the South would oppose it.  They might know how to keep their mouth shut now but speaking as one from Louisiana, the Dixiecrats are Republican now and have learned to keep their bigotry to themselves.

The Absolute Necessity of Rhetoric

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In President Obama’s recent trip to Afghanistan he told the troops that he would not send troops anywhere that was not “absolutely necessary” (http://frontpagemag.com/2009/10/27/mission-abandoned-%e2%80%93-by-alan-w-dowd/).  When President Bush started the war in Afghanistan he justified it as a crusade, vengeance for 911, a Texas style hanging for Al-Qaida and killing the ones responsible for 911.  I never heard him state that he was going to bring the terrorists responsible for 911 to justice.  He may have made that statement but most of the statements were along the line previously described.  Using these rhetorical ploys Bush was able to get the support he needed to start the war in Afghanistan.  Hatred is always a strong emotion while justice is emotionally a bit puny.  Bush started the war against Afghanistan based on rhetoric about getting Al-Qaida.  To date Al-Qaida is still around and our rhetoric about our enemy Al-Qaida is also used freely about the Taliban.  While no one would suggest that the Taliban is a great group of guys, they were not the stated reason why we went to war in Afghanistan.  Fanning the flames of 911, Bush was able to start a war.  His rhetoric became President Obama’s “absolute necessity”. 

I have previously stated that as leader of the United States, President Bush should have stated that we would bring Al-Qaida to justice.  Preferably, this would be done through the United Nations, the World Court and pressure from the World Monetary Fund (in Afghanistan and Pakistan).  President Bush’s rhetoric should have made justice the guiding principle.  We would have kept the sympathies of the world and made justice the value that everyone, no matter what their political persuasion, sympathetic to the universality of justice.  Vengeance and hatred on the other hand are regionally specific.  Those that hate and want vengeance are driven by their own internal necessity not by any universal appeal, by an ideal that everyone could think is worthwhile.  As I have also mentioned in another paper, barring the earnest attempt to get justice in a region of the world where justice is highly lacking, the alternative would be US Special Forces, the CIA, mercenaries, and covert bribes and pressure.  Don’t think it can’t be done; we had a whole cold war based in Afghanistan against the Russians using these techniques many years ago.  However, the political rhetoric should always be concentrated on universal values not regional and circumstantial emotions.

When our hatred drives our rhetoric the rhetoric can take on a life of its own in popular culture.  The switch from admirable, universal ideals to self-aggrandizing, raw and base instincts that become yet another mindless iteration of the past; it becomes its own necessity.  The necessity driven by hatred always ends badly.  The necessity driven by high ideals, historically always ends well.  Examples of the latter include the founding fathers, Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., Jesus, etc.  Unfortunately, the earlier is typically the blunder of humankind.

Since rhetoric based in base instinct got us into Afghanistan, I think President Obama had no other choice but to use rhetoric to get us out of Afghanistan.  It has been done before (Vietnam comes to mind) – we declare victory for x, y, z reasons and get the hell out.  We pursue the cause of bringing Al-Qaida to justice using the previously discussed strategies.  As it is, now we are looking at an endless war that has the tendency to expand as these situations typically do.

Another example of rhetoric gone badly is the recent militant rhetoric used by the Republican Party against the Democrats.  The Republican leaders play on the strong emotions of hatred and violence with inflammatory rhetoric and “wash their hands” of it when their words start taking a life of its own in popular behavior.  If you want to understand how Hitler was able to do what he did you can see the beginnings of it in these kinds of rhetorical ploys. 

While personally, I have never opposed capital punishment in cases where there is “no shadow of doubt” about the defendant’s guilt, I have opposed it based on the rhetorical dynamic described above.  When the necessity of rhetoric is allowed to run rampant Texas style executions become more and more “normal” and statistics about wrongful deaths and ethnic inequalities of the death penalty become more and more prevalent.

President Obama should have held to his higher ideals and not adopted the rhetorical necessity handed to him by the Bush administration. 

On a more philosophical level, the dynamic of rhetorical necessity tells us something about human’s unique way of being-in-the-world.  Our narratives of history become our cannon.  The ill-conceived actions that typically follow continue to create generations of veterans and Republican voters that sanctify our motivations and our histories.  The perceived alternative would be to exist in meaninglessness.  God, the self-evident and the a priori surround us as witnesses to our ultimate worthiness and meaning.  In the margins of our hubris plays the alter-ego, the lie of truth and the future seeds of our own undoing.

Response to a Pro-Death Comment

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This is my response to a Pro-Death comment submitted for this article:

House of Representatives Passes Sweeping Health Reform Bill

http://www.nea.org/home/38621.htm#btnSubmitComment

Original Comment:

“I just wanted to let the NEA president know that because of his arrogant opinion I am no longer a member of the NEA. I went to my local NEA office today and told them I no longer want to be a member of an organization who endorse people support socialist policies/agendas. My political and moral values are more important to me than anything in the world. I am so sorry that I was a member of an association that suppossedly pushes an agenda for kids but supports many political candidates who endorse killing babies in the womb (hypocracy) and makes a mockery of ideals of our founding fathers. By the way NEA make sure you push for print in all the future history books in schools throughout the USA, Im sorry…..the U.S.S.R (United States Socialist Republic), March 21, 2010, the day Constitution was ripped into shreads by the Democratic Party of America.”

My Response:

James 2:15-17 states:

“If a brother or sister be naked and in lack of daily food, and one of you say unto them, Go in peace, be ye warmed and filled; and yet ye give them not the things needful to the body; what doth it profit? Even so faith, if it have not works, is dead in itself.”

If Jesus were here today he would add health care to food and clothing as it is certainly “things needful to the body”.

The commenter above needs to know that abortion is legal in this country and has been for quite a few decades.  Neither President Obama nor the rest of us are baby killers because mere cells are not human.  On the other hand, you kill young people because they certainly are human and since I am sure you voted for Bush and his 2 ridiculous wars you had a direct hand in killing innocent young people – you are a murderer IMO.  By the way, I did not get any choice about paying taxes for your stupid wars that killed our young people. 

 I also did not get a choice about Social Security, Medicare, drivers license, motorcycle helmets, increased taxes for booze and cigarettes but I understand that we all pay for these issues and I am willing to pay without calling my country socialist, fascist, totalitarian, etc.  You are not a patriot – you are only for this country when you get your way. 

You need to know that President Obama was elected by a majority of us to do the job he did on health care.  I will not even begin to tell you how enraged I was during both Bush and Reagan presidencies.  We the American people DO want national health care in this country and you were told when President Obama was elected and you have been told again with this bill so deal with it!  If you are so “pro-life” how can you fight against the millions without health care in this country and the hundreds of thousands of deaths that result for no care or inadequate care?  Before CHIPS and this bill you people would not even let us insure kids in this country!  You are already involuntarily paying for emergency room health care and will be paying much, much more in the near future unless something is done NOW. 

Don’t say you are “pro-life” when you fully exhibit hatred and violence for those that have already certainly been born.  You are pro-death and full of darkness and an evil god!  Go back to your cave and pray or slice up small animals or whatever you do!

The Greater Good and Scott Roeder

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It seems to me that anti-abortion folks have an untenable position if they hold to the idea that some killing is ok.  I have debated abortion with many anti-choice folks.  I have never found one yet that took the position that killing any human for any reason was wrong.  Scott Roeder took the position that killing was ok in the case of self-defense or to protect “unborn children”.  Most anti-abortion folks will not go along with killing someone to protect “unborn children”.   However, most anti-abortion folks do believe in the concept of a “just war” and capital punishment.  In both of these cases they believe that it is ok for humans to kill others. 

In their view, God is good.  God is served in the case of a “just war” or capital punishment.  Therefore, killing in the case of a “just war” or capital punishment is the greater good – the greater good not by man’s standards but by God’s standards.  Many anti-abortion folks that have been around the block tend to resist arguing their point on purely religious grounds since they have been burned too many times with that argument.  They tend to take the emotional bashing, shame and pity method to make their point.   Nevertheless, when push comes to shove, their beliefs are really grounded in their religion.  In any case, the “greater good” argument works whether they are atheists are theists.  Since they believe that a greater good is served by a “just war” or capital punishment, the question is, “Why isn’t the greater good served by murdering an abortion doctor – if you believe that a fetus is a baby?”  How would you draw the line at saying killing an abortion doctor is wrong yet killing is ok in the case of a “just war” or capital punishment? 

I suppose if you are a theist you could maintain that the former is not God’s will while the latter is.  This argument will show itself to have more “subtleties” as in the case of Judas Iscariot cited further down.  So God appears to be more interested in killing “unjust” folks whether in war or in crime.  However, if you think that killing “babies” is murder, wouldn’t you also believe that it is “unjust”?  I suppose that if you question why one “unjust” act justifies humans killing humans but another “unjust” act does not, the theist would proclaim that we cannot know the mind of God.  But if we cannot know the mind of God how can they know the mind of God?  Well, they would say “faith”.  At this point nothing is left to be said since to question this “faith” means that you have no faith or at least not the “correct” faith.  In any case, it appears that there are various shades of faith. 

Scott Roeder’s faith told him it was ok to murder Dr. George Tiller.  The anti-abortion mainstream would disavow this type of faith and wash their hands of it (remind you of Pontius Pilate).  However, by intentionally slicing the kinds of faith so thin, don’t they share some complicity in this?  I have heard many of them (including Rod Dreher) write that they are not heartbroken by the death of Dr. George Tiller but condemn the action of Scott Roeder.  They have a very tight line to walk.  Ultimately, it can only be defended by appealing to their correct “faith”.  My question is. “How is this different from radical, violent Islam?”  They believe that they have the correct “faith” as well.  If everything boils down to the right “faith” then on the surface of it there is absolutely no difference. 

Here is another point – if you believe that Iraq or Afghanistan was wrong then you are in effect saying that those wars were not “just wars” and that your vote for the Republicans and President Bush was complicit in killing unjustly – or, murder (see http://mixermuse.com/blog/2010/01/02/nearly-every-member-of-congress-voted-for-intervention-in-iraq/ ).  As anti-choice, the only way to justify your vote for President Bush is to insist that both wars were just.  This would also include all the post-born women and children that were killed in these wars which no one would contest are not human and that the vast majority was innocent and killed unjustly.  I suppose this also would boil down to not having the correct knowledge of God.  The point is, once one starts down this road the fine distinctions get finer and finer.  When a person like Scott Roeder can’t get too fine with his logical prowess he just believes that he is exercising his faith by killing Dr. Tiller.  He thinks he is simply braver with his faith than most Christians.  He has all kinds of rationalizations about his virtuous motives.  Most Christians that disavow his action would also suggest that God can use evil for his glory as in the case of Judas Iscariot.   

Judas Iscariot betrayed Christ.  Here is what the Bible says concerning Judas:

I am not referring to all of you; I know those I have chosen. But this is to fulfill the scripture: ‘He who shares my bread has lifted up his heel against me’.  John 13:18

While I was with them, I protected them and kept them safe by that name you gave me. None has been lost except the one doomed to destruction so that Scripture would be fulfilled.  John 17:12

 Jesus replied, “The one who has dipped his hand into the bowl with me will betray me.  The Son of Man will go just as it is written about him. But woe to that man who betrays the Son of Man! It would be better for him if he had not been born.”  Then Judas, the one who would betray him, said, “Surely not I, Rabbi?”  Jesus answered, “Yes, it is you.”  Mathew 26:23-25

But the hand of him who is going to betray me is with mine on the table.  The Son of Man will go as it has been decreed, but woe to that man who betrays him.  Luke 22: 21-22

Then what was spoken by Jeremiah the prophet was fulfilled: “They took the thirty silver coins, the price set on him by the people of Israel, 10and they used them to buy the potter’s field, as the Lord commanded me.  Mathew 27:9-10

and said, “Brothers, the Scripture had to be fulfilled which the Holy Spirit spoke long ago through the mouth of David concerning Judas, who served as guide for those who arrested Jesus  Acts 1:16

“For,” said Peter, “it is written in the book of Psalms, ” ‘May his place be deserted; let there be no one to dwell in it,’ and, ” ‘May another take his place of leadership.  Acts 1:20

Judas was condemned for betraying Jesus and yet he was fulfilling the will of God.  This is how many anti-choice folks view the act of Scott Roeder. 

It seems to me that at some point we have to just state that “faith” and rationality contradict each other and “faith” wins at the cost of logic.  Even Kierkegaard who thought that faith was the absolute passion of pinning your eternal happiness on the contradiction of the God-Man would not pitch faith against logic.  He would simply suggest that logic is irrelevant for faith.  The square is not a circle in faith; it is just not relevant to that distinction.  However, in the case I am making, faith must conquer rationality and deem logic illogical by the “logic” of faith so the square is a circle.  Faith is another kind of logic that can contradict logic.  It is sort of like saying A is not A because of B.  If you have faith in B then your argument is proved correct.  However, many folks do not hear the voice of God in this proposition – only the confusion of man.

Christians still kill the innocent unjustly and still condemn those that they think do the same.  I believe this is the definition of a hypocrite.  It also shares a nasty complicity in the evil it condemns as the prophecy of God also shares an insidious role in the betrayal of Christ.  Thus, it seems to me that the violent history that marks the history of Christianity, the hatred of the inquisition, the genocide of the crusades still yells much louder in the anti-abortionists than the words of their Christ, “The eye is the lamp of your body; when your eye is clear, your whole body also is full of light; but when it is bad, your body also is full of darkness.  Then watch out that the light in you is not darkness.”  Luke 11:34-35

Poor Rich Folks

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Republicans, the home of many wealthy corporations and individuals, control public perception through the media.  They are very good at it – much better than Democrats.  Maybe the media is liberal if you listen to them but voters fall in line like zombies to their beckoning call.  The Heritage Foundation, a very conservative “think tank” (I prefer to call them a propaganda tank), stated during the 2008 campaign that, “Senator Obama’s new tax rate would give the United States one of the highest tax rates among developed countries.”  They went on to state, “The top marginal rate would exceed 60 percent with the inclusion of state and local taxes”.  The article would have us believe that the US under President Obama will have the highest taxes in the world.

http://www.heritage.org/Research/Taxes/wm1973.cfm

I have found the Heritage Foundation to be in the big time business of deception and public manipulation (the US Chamber of Congress as well).  Both of these groups are private and bought and paid for by wealthy Republicans.  So where is the deception in the article cited above?

It is in the small phrase “marginal rate”.  The fact is that there is something called “effective tax rate”.  Marginal rate does not include pre-tax dollars.  Marginal rate is the rate before all the tax loop holes.  Tax loop holes are spread more generously with the wealthy (individuals and corporations) and less generously with middle income to low income groups.  The effective tax rate is what individuals and corporations pay after their tax loop holes are taken into account.  Effective tax rate is the rate after all the tax loop holes – what they really pay.  The Congressional Budget Office has generated data on the effective tax rate ever since 1979.  Here is the latest one from 2006:

Distribution of Federal Taxes and Household Income, 2006            
  Low   Middle   High All Top 10% Top 5% Top 1%
Average Pre-tax Income 17,200 39,400 60,700 89,500 248,400 90,700 366,400 564,200 1,743,700
All Federal Taxes 4.3 10.2 14.2 17.6 25.8 20.7 27.5 29 31.2
Individual Income Taxes -6.6 -0.8 3 6 14.1 9.1 16 17.5 19
Social Insurance Taxes 8.5 9.2 9.4 9.6 5.8 7.5 4.6 3.4 1.6
Corporate Income Taxes 0.5 0.6 0.8 1.2 5.4 3.4 6.6 7.9 10.4
Excise Taxes 1.9 1.2 0.9 0.8 0.4 0.7 0.4 0.3 0.2

 

http://cbo.gov/ftpdocs/100xx/doc10068/effective_tax_rates_2006.pdf

The chart shows by average income level what individuals and corporations are really paying in taxes.  The social insurance tax is basically what is taken out of your pay check for Social Security and Medicare.  Excise taxes are, “taxes paid when purchases are made on a specific good, such as gasoline. Excise taxes are often included in the price of the product. There are also excise taxes on activities, such as on wagering or on highway usage by trucks. Excise Tax has several general excise tax programs. One of the major components of the excise program is motor fuel.”

http://www.irs.gov/businesses/small/article/0,,id=99517,00.html

The “All Federal Taxes” row is the sum of all the taxes listed below that row (income, social, corporate, excise).  The “All” column shows all income categories (i.e., our 2006 average, not medium, pre-tax income for the US was $90,700) – how the US fares in general.  The last three columns show the top income categories (10%, 5%, 1%).

If you read Heritage Foundation literature you are lead to believe that corporations and rich people are paying for everyone else.  What they do not tell is that wealthy groups in this country are paying more because they make a WHOLE lot more.  Percentage wise they are paying much less than they would have you believe.  The top 10% of wealthy corporations are paying a real tax rate of 6.6% of its income.  People making an average of $248,400 a year are paying a real income tax rate of 14.1% of their income.  Contrary to the Heritage Foundation lies, these are not the highest real tax rates in the world and appear to be very reasonable to me.  These folks are living lives of luxury and would have us crying for them at the voting booth – come on folks – think about why they would have you believe this – they want to have more at your expense and they want you to be grateful for this when you vote – is this insanity or what????

If you have median income, here is what has happened to your real income tax rate since 1958.  Median income tax rate is defined as, “the exact middle of the income distribution–half of families are above and half are below”:

Year Rate
1958 6.96
1959 7.49
1960 7.77
1961 7.94
1962 8.3
1963 8.68
1964 7.56
1965 7.09
1966 7.48
1967 8
1968 9.21
1969 9.92
1970 9.35
1971 9.27
1972 9.09
1973 9.45
1974 8.99
1975 9.62
1976 9.89
1977 10.42
1978 11.07
1979 10.84
1980 11.42
1981 11.79
1982 11.06
1983 10.38
1984 10.25
1985 10.34
1986 10.48
1987 8.9
1988 9.3
1989 9.36
1990 9.33
1991 9.3
1992 9.18
1993 9.18
1994 9.17
1995 9.28
1996 9.33
1997 9.32
1998 7.98
1999 7.88
2000 8.02
2001 6.71
2002 6.53
2003 5.34
2004 5.38
2005 5.69
2006 5.85
2007 5.91

 

http://www.forbes.com/2009/04/16/tax-tea-party-opinions-columnists-protest.html

In spite of this, the rich have certainly become much richer with Republicans than Democrats. 

“Census Bureau data reveal large, consistent differences in patterns of real pre-tax income growth

under Democratic and Republican presidents in the post-war U.S. Democratic presidents have

produced slightly more income growth for poor families than for rich families, resulting in a

modest decrease in overall inequality. Republican presidents have produced a great deal more

income growth for rich families than for poor families, resulting in a substantial increase in

inequality. On average, families at the 95th percentile of the income distribution have

experienced identical income growth under Democratic and Republican presidents, while those

at the 20th percentile have experienced more than four times as much income growth under

Democrats as they have under Republicans. These differences are attributable to partisan

differences in unemployment (which has been 30 percent lower under Democratic presidents, on

average) and GDP growth (which has been 30 percent higher under Democratic presidents, on

average); both unemployment and GDP growth have much stronger effects on income growth at

the bottom of the income distribution than at the top. Similar partisan differences appear in the

distribution of post-tax income growth of households since 1980, despite the fact that the

corresponding pre-tax income growth data for that period show little evidence of partisan

differences.”

http://www.russellsage.org/publications/workingpapers/bartels/document

Another important point to be made here is about the tax burden or who is taking on more of the tax responsibilities under Republicans.  Check this out from 2004 to get an idea of what happened to the middle class during the Bush administration:

“Since 2001, President Bush’s tax cuts have shifted federal tax payments from the richest Americans to a wide swath of middle-class families, the Congressional Budget Office has found, a conclusion likely to roil the presidential election campaign.

The CBO study, due to be released today, found that the wealthiest 20 percent, whose incomes averaged $182,700 in 2001, saw their share of federal taxes drop from 64.4 percent of total tax payments in 2001 to 63.5 percent this year. The top 1 percent, earning $1.1 million, saw their share fall to 20.1 percent of the total, from 22.2 percent.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A61178-2004Aug12.html

The 64.4%, 63.5%, 20.1% and 22.2% quoted here are not marginal or effective tax rates.  They are the percentage of total taxes these folks are shouldering.  These values are also shown for 2006 and 2005 in the section of the CBO chart mentioned above under the heading of “Share of Tax Liabilities”.

Here is another chart:

Change in Real Family Income by Quintile and Top 5%, 1979-2005    
 Bottom 20% Second 20% Middle 20% Fourth 20% Top 20% Top 5%
Less than $25,616 $25,616-$45,021 $45,021-$68,304 $68,304-$103,100 above $103,100 above $184,500
-1% 9% 15% 25% 53% 81%

 

http://www.demos.org/inequality/numbers.cfm

So, the point is that there are many groups that spend a lot of time and money making sure you act and think they way they want you to – even against your own interests.  This is why so many are alarmed at the Supreme Court’s decision to, in essence, allow no campaign finance reform, the wealthy will have no limits on the money they can spend to manipulate you.  My solution is to educate folks so no matter how many dollars are spent by the wealthy it will not be worth their time and money at the voting booth.  Folks, we need to grow up and quit believing every spam we come across.  Otherwise, history has shown time and time again that revolution will be the inevitable outcome and that has never worked out in most cases for the long run.  Here is what I think we, as the electorate, need to do:

 -do the research

-think about the vested interest of who is trying to convince you of something

-vote wisely

Do I have a vested interest?  Did you pay for this?  Are you going to pay for this?  Read this post if you want to know my real interest:

 http://mixermuse.com/blog/2010/01/19/the-criminal-and-the-human-a-rational-approach-to-liberalism/

I am probably upper middle income with the best health insurance money can buy, federal government health insurance.  My wife retired from the GAO.

I am a small business owner.  My business is doing well.

I am liberal or left of liberal but I am also a believer in true conservatism defined as:

-Taxes and government…genuine conservation has the goal of conserving precious resources not for selfishly, perceived goals but for the good of society; so that suffering is addressed efficiently and effectively.

-Military…Non-intervention in other sovereign nation’s affairs

-Equality is constitutional (Abraham Lincoln)

-Separation of church and state

All these are the best of conservatism and have been lacking in the Republican Party in recent years.  If I am wrong, show me.  I will change my mind (not saying it is easy but I have done so many times in the past).  Otherwise, I will live, act and vote in the meager amount of integrity that I have been given.

A vote against Big Government is a vote for Big Business

2 Replies

Rest assured that if you are angry and want to vote against the Democrats by voting for a Republican you will be voting for Big Business.  You will be voting for Wall Street, private contractor wars and world anger and hatred for the United States.  You will be voting for more of the Bush years.  Republicans will say and do anything to get elected but their actions speak louder than words.  They are all about back room deals with Big Business. 

Here is one proof:

In 8 years controlling the executive branch and 6 years of that controlling the legislative branch, the Republicans did the only major health care initiative that I know of – the Prescription Drug Benefit known as Medicare Part D.

Take a look at this article concerning Part D:

http://taxvox.taxpolicycenter.org/blog/_archives/2009/5/14/4186168.html

The initial 10 year cost of the program by the CBO in 2003 was $395 billion.   The current 10 year cost cited below totals out at $999.9 billion.  All costs cited above are intermediate estimates.

Table III.C19.—Operations of the Part D Account in the SMI Trust Fund (Cash Basis) during Calendar Years 2004-2018

[In billions]

Income Expenditures Account
Calendar year Premium income1 General revenue2 Transfers from States3 Interest and other Total Benefit payments4 Adminis-trative expense Total Net change Balance at end of year5
Historical data:
2004 — $0.4 — — $0.4 $0.4 — $0.4 — —
2005 — 1.1 — — 1.1 1.1 — 1.1 — —
2006 $3.5 39.2 $5.5 $0.0 48.2 47.1 $0.3 47.4 $0.8 $0.8
2007 4.0 38.8 6.9 0.0 49.7 48.8 0.9 49.7 0.0 0.8
2008 5.0 37.3 7.1 0.0 49.4 49.0 0.3 49.3 0.1 0.9
Intermediate estimates:
2009 6.3 6 48.5 7.9 0.0 62.7 62.6 0.4 63.0 −0.2 0.7
2010 7.2 6 50.7 8.3 0.0 66.2 65.8 0.4 66.2 0.0 0.7
2011 8.4 55.5 8.8 0.0 72.8 72.3 0.4 72.7 0.0 0.7
2012 9.6 60.8 9.4 0.0 79.9 79.4 0.5 79.8 0.1 0.8
2013 10.6 66.1 10.1 0.0 86.8 86.2 0.5 86.7 0.1 0.9
2014 11.6 72.4 10.8 0.0 94.9 94.3 0.5 94.8 0.1 0.9
2015 13.3 6 79.9 11.5 0.0 104.8 104.2 0.5 104.8 0.1 1.0
2016 13.8 6 88.2 12.6 0.0 114.7 114.0 0.5 114.6 0.1 1.1
2017 15.9 97.4 13.9 0.0 127.3 126.6 0.5 127.2 0.1 1.2
2018 17.7 107.8 15.4 0.0 140.9 140.2 0.6 140.8 0.1 1.3
                         

 

AND:

Table III.C23.—Unfunded Part D Obligations from Program Inception through the Infinite Horizon

[Present values as of January 1, 2009; dollar amounts in trillions]

Present value As a percentage of GDP
Unfunded obligations through the infinite horizon1 $0.0 0.0 %
Expenditures 20.3 1.5
Income 20.3 1.5
Beneficiary premiums 2.5 0.2
State transfers 2.2 0.2
General revenue contributions 15.5 1.2
Unfunded obligations from program inception through 20831 0.0 0.0
Expenditures 9.4 1.2
Income 9.4 1.2
Beneficiary premiums 1.2 0.1
State transfers 1.0 0.1
General revenue contributions 7.2 0.9
       

 

15.5 trillion projected out to infinity and 7.2 trillion to 2083.

http://www.cms.hhs.gov/ReportsTrustFunds/downloads/tr2009.pdf

Here are some other quotes from articles:

“Just to be clear, the Medicare drug benefit was a pure giveaway with a gross cost greater than either the House or Senate health reform bills how being considered. Together the new bills would cost roughly $900 billion over the next 10 years, while Medicare Part D will cost $1 trillion.”

 “when the legislation came up for its final vote on Nov. 22, 2003, it was failing by 216 to 218 when the standard 15-minute time allowed for voting came to an end.

What followed was one of the most extraordinary events in congressional history. The vote was kept open for almost three hours while the House Republican leadership brought massive pressure to bear on the handful of principled Republicans who had the nerve to put country ahead of party. The leadership even froze the C-SPAN cameras so that no one outside the House chamber could see what was going on.”

http://www.forbes.com/2009/11/19/republican-budget-hypocrisy-health-care-opinions-columnists-bruce-bartlett.html

“By the design of the program, the federal government is not permitted to negotiate prices of drugs with the drug companies, as federal agencies do in other programs. The Veterans Administration, which is allowed to negotiate drug prices and establish a formulary, pays 58% less for drugs, on average, than Medicare Part D.[32] For example, Medicare pays $785 for a year’s supply of Lipitor (atorvastatin), while the VA pays $520. Medicare pays $1,485 for Zocor, while the VA pays $127.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medicare_Part_D [i]

One other thing, if you hear anyone tell you that they do not take any give outs from the government and they are on Part D – they are absolutely wrong.  We will not even have to discuss what they paid into Social Security and Medicare and how much more they are taking out because:

-they are living longer

-the increasing cost of health that was way off when it was calculated in their employment years   

They never paid anything into Part D and the money they pay for their drugs is very small compared to the cost of the drug.  The 1 trillion dollar deficit over 10 years includes what they pay.

So, here we have it – Republicans did this:

-Gave the drug companies and insurance companies a trillion dollar handout over the next 10 years

-Total Cost to the tax payer is 15.5 trillion projected out to infinity

-Made sure we could not negotiate these costs in bulk

1 trillion dollars over 10 years for Part D is 100 billion dollars a year for 10 years.  It is more than the current estimate for the Health Care Reform bill (currently priced at 900 billion for 10 years in the Senate bill)!

Hello – If you vote for a Republican you are voting for Wall Street to get away with more than they already did – do you think the United States can survive this???

Folks, we need to understand that a vote against Big Government is a vote for Big Business.

My background is in business.  I was an engineer, low and middle manager in small, intermediate and large businesses.  I know it from the inside.  My significant other retired from the GAO so I know this side as well.  Here are some observations:

Government calls it tax => Business calls it profit – it all boils down to more money you pay from your pocket!

Government has programs that are wasteful (but not nearly as many as you might think) => Big business gives huge bonuses and stock options

Government has its share of inefficient employees => Big business keeps hiring and promoting worthless people that suck up the bottom line and many stay on when the company is sold

Government is too big => Big business is too big to fail

If you think there is a “free market” that makes Big Business better than Big Government you have bought hook, line and sinker into Republican propaganda – Big Business is NO better by any of the standards you want to compare with Big Government.  The best thing we can do is keep Big Business and Big Government at each other (see http://mixermuse.com/blog/2010/01/04/free-market-eitheror-government/ ). 

You gave Bush 8 years to lavish riches on Big Business – please give the Democrats time to try to reverse and offset those years.  If you are unhappy in eight years vote them out!  If you vote them out now you may as well say goodbye to the USA because the collapse we had on Wall Street will pale in comparison to what you are going to get!

[i]   In researching this paper I found what I think are glaring mistakes for the Wikipedia Medicare Part D article cited here.  I have put these comments in the talk section for this article and plan to correct it if there are no objections.

“Current “Program costs” Section is:

As of January 2006, the expected per capita drug spending, reported by the Department of Health and Human services, was $2,250, making the total cost of the program $42.75 Billion.[6] This budget compares with revenues of $54 Billion for Pfizer and $48.6 Billion for Johnson & Johnson, the two largest pharmaceutical companies. Kaiser Family Foundation, estimates the 2006 costs at $37.4 billion.[2] Total costs through 2015 are estimated to be $724 billion. Some of these revenues will be provided by “clawback” of revenues currently provided to the states for Medicaid. The “clawback” is a mechanism by which federal expenditures that benefit states (specifically regarding dual eligibles) are reimbursed back to the federal government. This reimbursement starts at 90%, but then falls to 75% in 2015. Figures also depend on per capita estimates of dual eligible expenditures and the number of dual eligibles that receive benefits.

As of January 2008, total Medicare spending for prescription drug benefits was projected to drop from $40.5 billion in 2007 to $36 billion in 2008. One factor contributing to lower costs is the increased use of generic drugs.[4] Shortly after the release of the 2008 Medicare Trustees’ Report,[25] the Chief Actuary testified that the 10-year cost of Medicare drug benefit is 37% lower than originally projected in 2003, and 17% percent lower than last year’s projections.[26]

In August 2008, CMS estimated that the 10-year cost of the program would be $395 billion, down from the original estimate of $634 billion.[15] (note: This link is dead.) In late October 2008, USA Today reported that costs were down by $6 billion, or 12%, for the fiscal year ended September 30. Costs for the program were approximately one third less than originally predicted.[27]

Proposed New “Program costs” Section:

As of the end of year 2008, the average annual per beneficiary cost spending for Part D, reported by the Department of Health and Human Services, was $1,517 [44], making the total expenditures of the program for 2008 $49.3 (billions). Total intermediate, projected expenditures from 2009 through 2018 are estimated to be $999.9 (billions). [45]

New “Program costs” References:

44. ^ 2009 ANNUAL REPORT OF THE BOARDS OF TRUSTEES OF THE FEDERAL HOSPITAL INSURANCE AND FEDERAL SUPPLEMENTARY MEDICAL INSURANCE TRUST FUNDS, Table II.B1.—Medicare Data for Calendar Year 2008, Page 5 (Page 11 in pdf)

45. ^ 2009 ANNUAL REPORT OF THE BOARDS OF TRUSTEES OF THE FEDERAL HOSPITAL INSURANCE AND FEDERAL SUPPLEMENTARY MEDICAL INSURANCE TRUST FUNDS, Table III.C19.—Operations of the Part D Account in the SMI Trust Fund (Cash Basis) during Calendar Years 2004-2018, Page 120 (Page 126 in pdf)

Notes for Talk section viewers:

– There are many links that are dead in this article. The data is also very old.

– I will try to update the article one section at a time starting with the program cost section. If there are no objections or requested additions I will update the “Program costs” section on 2/1

– The hyperlink for reference 44 is http://www.cms.hhs.gov/ReportsTrustFunds/downloads/tr2009.pdf

– The hyperlink for refernce 45 is also http://www.cms.hhs.gov/ReportsTrustFunds/downloads/tr2009.pdf

– Any comments or feedback is highly welcome…”