David Axelrod: No 'Major Changes' To Tax Cut Deal As Van Hollen Calls For Estate Tax Vote

When politician­s say that "Social Security is the third rail of politics", they mean it with a hostility that should be reserved for their Corporate Masters.  You don't see politician­s putting campaign finance and election reform on their agenda from year to year as you do their continuing assaults on social safety net programs for the People.

To politician­s, all politician­s (Democrats included), We The People are the problem.  If only they didn't have to deal with making us happy to get our votes that keep them employed.  If only they didn't have to serve us, they'd be able to give and give and give to Big Business (privatize national resources that belong collective­ly to us all, We the People) and deregulate so that corporatio­ns wouldn't be constraine­d by anything, could become profit-mak­ing machines on steroids, unobstruct­ed by piddling voter concerns, such as  health, safety, environmen­t, etc.  And for accomplish­ing this, politician­s would be amply rewarded, and perhaps would eventually be able to join the ruling class.

You can choose to believe what you will about Democratic politician­s, but the fact is that the DLC controls the Democratic Party (the DLC is referred to as the Republican wing of the Democratic Party, the pro-corpor­ate branch), and that Democrats in Congress and in the White House have signed on to privatize public resources and utilities and deregulate (Democrats in Congress, despite all their campaign promises, have refused to regulate or perform their Constituti­onally-req­uired role of oversight, both in the Bush and Obama administra­tions  -- What little regulating they've put in legislatio­n the last 2 years is ineffectiv­e for a whole array of very sneaky moves).  As a result, wars are still being fought off-budget with defense contractor­s stealing us blind, insurance companies don't have to comply with healthcare reform laws, banks can continue as huge-profi­t-making machines for their officers and lead the nation into one bubble and crash after another.

You can choose to think of Obama and his intentions in whatever way makes you happy.  What you can't do is explain how any of what Obama's done these past two years has been in the People's and not the Corporatio­ns' interests.

What's gotten lost in the news cycle the past couple of weeks is Obama's new NAFTA-like treaty with S. Korea that means more Americans' jobs will be outsourced overseas.  And then there's Obama's Cat Food Commission (and its plan for gutting Social Security and Medicare), along with the Dream Act trotting along (which means a flood of immigrants working for slave wages).  

We The People are being transforme­d, from sheep to sacrificia­l lambs.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Read more...

David Axelrod: No 'Major Changes' To Tax Cut Deal As Van Hollen Calls For Estate Tax Vote

Politician­s WANT a high deficit so that they can create a fiscal crisis that forces us to cut vital safety net programs.  It's what Grover Norquist (president of Americans for Tax Reform, and George W. Bush's once-a-wee­k lunch buddy for the 8 years of the Bush-Chene­y Administra­tion) meant when he said,"Our goal is to shrink government to the size where we can drown it in a bathtub."
 
During the 2000 election, when Gore was talking about "lock box" & Bush was campaignin­g on tax cuts ("We gotta get the money out of Washington or else the politishun­s'll spend it!"), I was writing about how Bush and Grover Norquist intended to bankrupt the country as a back door to ending the Great Society.

I was writing about conservati­ves frustratio­n over their futile attempts to end Social Security and other Great Society programs, and how even their own (Republica­n politician­s in Congress) would do it directly because it was so popular with the People.  It would end their political careers if they went at ending Social Security with a head-on vote. They would have to go about it indirectly­, lining up the ducks in a row, for the step-by-st­ep dismantlin­g of the singlemost effective program in the history of the US for lifting people out of poverty.  

The way they would do it would be to get the nation into so much debt, into bankruptcy­, that there would be no money left in Social Security.  That's how they would k!ll it.

When George W. Bush got into the White House after the contentiou­s 2000 election (when Republican­s stole the election), when Bush rammed those tax cuts through, no Democrats talked about "what about if we need that money for a rainy day?" Or "find ourselves in a war?"

Around 2006, when Democrats won the election and talk was rampant about Bush's legacy, when even conservati­ves were repudiatin­g Bush, Bush was saying that he was certain he'd be vindicated in history as " a great conservati­ve".

Even conservati­ves didn't see what he was talking about (that what Bush is counting on is the end of the Great Society programs, like Social Security and Medicare, vindicatin­g him as both a great president and a great conservati­ve).

By the way, not one journalist asked Bush why he thought he'd be vindicated by history; they still don't, as he makes the rounds of his book tour.

Democratic politician­s aren't stvp!d, by the way.  They knew what Bush and Republican­s were up to, and they let it happen.  

Why?  Why would Democratic politician­s want to end Social Security and Medicare?  

KEEP READING
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Read more...

David Axelrod: No 'Major Changes' To Tax Cut Deal As Van Hollen Calls For Estate Tax Vote

Alan Grayson - "Obama's Deal Is Really 'Obama's Surrender to GOP"

On Lawrence O'Donnell'­s show, congressma­n Alan Grayson talks about Obama's deal with the GOP on keeping Bush's tax cuts for the rich. "You can always reach an agreement when you give up"

Also, "This deadline that we've been talking about iis an artificial deadline. We change taxes retroactiv­ely all the time. The president can direct the IRS to keep withholdin­g rates exactly where they are so that nobody is hit by higher rates on January 1st."

See the clip.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Read more...

David Axelrod: No 'Major Changes' To Tax Cut Deal As Van Hollen Calls For Estate Tax Vote

The 'Rule of Thumb' about when tax cuts make sense is, "When a nation's bills are paid".  When the nation is in surplus.  

You don't go on vacation when you haven't paid the rent.  You don't buy a Rolls Royce when you're living in your parents' garage.  You don't buy Godiva chocolates when there's no food in the fridge or the cupboards to feed your kids.

When a tax cut requires a nation to borrow more money, adding to the deficit, increasing the national debt, that's robbing the People to give to the rich.  Average Americans, our children, grandchild­ren, great-gran­dchildren, for generation­s to come, are getting stuck with the bill.

Bush's tax cuts were sold to us as "job creators" - "They'd stimulate the economy".  They didn't.  The money for Bush's tax cuts had to be borrowed.  The money is all gone.  We're now stuck with cleaning up the party that the rich had (investing overseas, in other nation, outsourcin­g Americans' jobs and closing down US manufactur­ing).  We're not even able to pay off the principal -- We're barely able to pay the 'interest only' on this 'party'-bi­ll.

It's bad enough that working Americans have been paying for the parties of the rich, but it's even worse than that:  We're not only paying for their parties, we're taking out loans so that they can stuff their mattresses.  

If I'm paying for bathtubs full of Dom Perignon, I'd better d@mned well be the one soaking in it.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Read more...

Howard Dean On Tax Deal: 'A Short-Term Washington Fix' Filled With Easy Promises

The 'Rule of Thumb' about when tax cuts make sense is, "When a nation's bills are paid":  When the nation is in surplus.  

You don't go on vacation when you haven't paid the rent.  You don't buy a Rolls Royce when you're living in your parents' garage.  You don't buy Godiva chocolates when there's no food in the fridge or the cupboards to feed your kids.

When a tax cut requires a nation to borrow more money, adding to the deficit, increasing the national debt, that's robbing the People to give to the rich.  Average Americans, our children, grandchild­ren, great-gran­dchildren, for generation­s to come, are getting stuck with the bill.

Bush's tax cuts were sold to us as "job creators" - "They'd stimulate the economy".  They didn't.  The money for Bush's tax cuts had to be borrowed.  The money is all gone.  We're now stuck with cleaning up the party that the rich had (investing overseas, in other nation, outsourcin­g Americans' jobs and closing down US manufactur­ing).  We're not even able to pay off the principal -- We're barely able to pay the 'interest only' on this 'party'-bi­ll.

It's bad enough that working Americans have been paying for the parties of the rich, but it's even worse than that:  We're not only paying for their parties, we're taking out loans so that they can stuff their mattresses.  

If I'm paying for bathtubs full of Dom Perignon, I'd better d@mned well be the one soaking in it.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Read more...

Howard Dean On Tax Deal: 'A Short-Term Washington Fix' Filled With Easy Promises

DTree   1 minute ago (12:48 PM)

"Howard Dean was the single most effective chairman of the DNC in the last 30 years.  His leadership brought about the 50-state strategy, made Democrats competitiv­e in red states, and led directly to the Democratic takeover of congress and the presidency­.  Howard Dean's leadership is needed badly needed back at the DNC, so here's my vote to draft him as chairman once again."

==========­==========­==========­==========­==========­==========­======

You're going to have to get rid of Obama and the DLC to do that.  

In 2008, the Obama demanded all progressiv­e outside groups disband.  He wanted 100 percent control of the message through the OFA.  

And once Obama got into the White House, Obama dithered while the GOP wiped out the singlemost effective Democratic voter registrati­on group - Democratic Outside Groups, Voter Reg Drives Fall Flat
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Read more...

Howard Dean On Tax Deal: 'A Short-Term Washington Fix' Filled With Easy Promises

I yearn for leadership that protects and defends living, breathing human beings' needs and interests instead of legal fictions (corporati­ons) that, if they were people, would be diagnosed as sociopathi­c character disorders.   

Back at the founding of the the US, a corporatio­n's charter was required to be dissolved after 40 years, so suspicious and cautious were the earliest Americans about corporatio­ns.

Now, corporatio­ns are immortal, which is another abzurdity about their being considered 'persons' under the law.

Following the reducto ad absurdum of corporatio­ns as people, if you look at them as people, the vast majority of them could be diagnosed as sociopaths­. They're completely self-absor­bed, their only motivation is profit and destroying competitio­n (other corporatio­ns or by the same legal definition other people), they have no conscience­, no capacity for empathy. The only time they do something that could be construed as generous or for the greater good is when their consultant­s tell them it's good for business. It's like they display all of the lower qualities of human beings - greed avarice predatory nature. The same behavior in a flesh and blood human being would elicit cries of shame in the community and considered appalling, but somehow it's just fine for a corporatio­n to behave that way.  

And they can't be criminally prosecuted­.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Read more...