How many minutes has it been since you heard someone call this the greatest country in the world? How many seconds? Did you agree? Ooops. Was it you saying that?

It used to be arguably true. We got accustomed to telling ourselves it was so. We believed it. Many of us, most of us still do.

What ruler do you use? How do we measure the relative greatness of the country? What statistics should we employ? Perhaps I should find a synonym for that last word.

Back when such a claim was believeable, we had a dynamic, growing middle class that was becoming ever better off financially. I can actually remember that far back. It began around the end of WWII. We began losing all that about 1973.

The initial kick in the stomach was the first oil embargo. Then came the second embargo in 1979. While the then price of a gallon of go juice now seems impossibly low, a sudden quadrupling of the price brought major economic disruptions and dislocations.

We weren’t prepared for the first and refused to learn any lessons before the second embargo.

Those economic inconveniences were caused by a bunch despots. They were the ones that we had forced upon people we didn’t care about in order to set our own price for stealing their only resource. We showed them that Americans could be even more destructive. The rise of own domestic neocons and the Chicago School of Tinkle Down Economics were able to accomplish what our protégés could not.

They are doing what the USSR failed to do. They are bringing us to our knees.

In 1981 we were the largest creditor nation. Now we are the largest debtor nation. Then, we were the largest exporter of manufactured goods. Now? The largest importer. Then, the largest importer of raw materials. Now, the largest exporter.

There you have it. The definition of a 3^rd-world country. Our biggest export is lumber. Georgia’s biggest export is probably white clay (I haven’t checked in the last few years). White clay? They export mostly to Japan. There it is used to make china. It’s sometimes known as kaolin, from which they also make a product like our Kaopectate.

Are We Treated Fairly?

Does our country treat its citizens fairly? The United States ranks dead last on almost all measures of equity because we have the greatest disparity in the quality of health care given to richer and poorer citizens. No. We do not have the best health care in the world. We dropped to 37^th.

That was in 2000. We dropped further but expressed out displeasure with the results, so the World Health Organization ceased embarrassing us. Money not only talks, it also can shut people up. By the way, are we still nipping at the heels of Costa Rica?

Well, how about financial fairness? Lets see. Oh. The United States ranked 64^th in income inequality (worse than Cameron, but just above Uruguay). Accounting for inflation, personal income reached its peak in 1973. Do you remember when most households needed only one wage earner?

How about freedom? According to Douglas Berman, an Ohio State law professor, “We live in a country conceived on the notion of liberty, but we lead the world in locking people up.” One of every four prisoners in the world is in our prisons. Cuba, Iran, North Korea, even China cannot match our version of freedom.

It’s Beginning To Smart

2+2=? Surely we’re the smartest, er, best educated people in the world. Out of 34 countries, the U.S. ranked 14^th in reading, 17^th in science and 25^th in math. Who was on top? South Korea. I was in Korea in the 1950s, 60s and 70s. In the 50s and some of the 60s the road from the capitol of Seoul to its international airport, Kimpo, was gravel part of the way and dirt the rest.

They have created their infrastructure almost from scratch since then. They now have the highest percentage of people with broadband and the highest internet speeds in the world. All this, and leading the world in education. We need to really work hard to come up with excuses for our performance.

The people of Minneapolis may appreciate that out infrastructure has not been one of our highest priorities. China spends 9% of their income on infrastructure. The European Union spends 5%. We spend 2.4%.

On and on, it’s the same story. it’s not easy to find something to brag about.

How Did This Happen? Why?

During the Eisenhower Adminstration the highest marginal tax rate was 91%. No one paid that much on their entire income, just on the amout above some number that few people even dreamed about.

Those “job creators” created jobs at a faster rate than at any other time. Well, at least the jobs got created faster. Those making extreme incomes don’t really create jobs. Big business doesn’t create jobs. Small business doesn’t create jobs. Government creates some jobs but consumers are the real job creators.

No business hires and invests in more production if there are no customers. The public forums are full of economic myths. Giving the wealthy and corporations more money so they will create jobs is one of the most popular, . . . and absurd.

Both parties have stocked Congress with economic geniuses. Their owners get such lunacies as NAFTA. They get tax breaks for moving jobs overseas. All this while entertaining us with campaign promises to restore good-paying manufacturing jobs.

With a few exceptions, we will not see a recovery in manufacturing jobs. They are too easy to outsource, even without tax subsidies. They are also very susceptible to loss to automation. Unless the Congress gets some members with 3-digit IQs, we will all be selling burgers and fries to each other.

If these policies are destroying the economy and not really benefiting the elite, why did they do this? It’s partly a matter of stupidity, largely a juvenile devotion to a perverted, misunderstood ideology – capitalism. We must not forget a visceral hatred of unions. They are maniacally focused on the destruction of unions.

The unions created the middle class. Even non-members profited from their employers having to compete with wages and benefits. People were able to consume. Businesses had more customers with more money. What terrible monsters those unions were.

While most were in decline, with many also losing retirement and health insurance benefits, between 1979 and 2007 the 1% increased 275%. Income disparity here is in the same range as banana republics, and worse.

How does this really benefit the elite? Do they feel safer? Is the economy more stable? While the numbers in their portfolios are larger, they are actually pissing in their own soup. Instead of owning stronger, more stable corporations, the elite are making their wealth by manipulating paper assets. Can we say, house of cards?

Our economy is consumer driven but Congress has the answer. Give the wealthy more tax cuts and impoverish the consumers.

How do the elite spend their tax cuts? They buy a private jet. Most private jets are made in Canada and Brazil. They send it to Swiss and Caribbean banks. They buy several more $7,000 British suits, $12,000 French watches, $100,000 European cars. They create jobs in the US – not.

I have heard the claim that American businessmen are very smart. We are even told we should put them in the Oval Office. Businessmen like George W. (remember his MBA)? Herbert Hoover? Four of every five businesses fail within five years. Now that takes smarts.

Kodak owned the world. They invented the digital camera. They were so smart they didn’t allow it to divert sales from their film products. Now, they are in bankruptcy court.

Those masters of the universe on Wall Street needed us peons to bail them out from the results of their intelligence. Take a few minutes and make a list of dozens of business failures caused by our super smart businessmen.

It need not be. The titans of the auto industry rewarded their own intelligence with enough to make Midas envious. They went down the tubes. With a little bit of bankruptcy, humility and government interference, a new crew was able to turn them around.

We have made too many clichés come true: our goose is cooked, we killed the goose that laid the golden egg, the chickens have come home to roost, we have seen the enemy and it is us. But we have discovered that money does not respond to the force of gravity. Rather, it responds to the force of greed.

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Do you know which company is the world’s largest health care corporation? Care to guess? Aw, go on. You know the answer.

Time’s up. It’s Johnson & Johnson, with a logo that often includes the words, Family of Companies. Oh, doesn’t that make them sound so cozy? Maybe they should ‘incorporate’ a teddy bear with a Band-Aid as a part of their corporate symbol.

Would you be surprised if one of their signature products contained a couple of cancer-causing ingredients? Would you be surprised to learn that they have been the subject of a boycott that has already lasted two and a half years. That boycott is supported by 25 associations of physicians and nurses and cancer and environmental organizations representing over three and a half million people, here and abroad.

Would you believe those ingredients are unnecessary? While it is sold with those ingredients in several countries, including the US, it is available in other countries without them. It seems that regulations can make a difference. They can keep your baby safe.

Just what is this dangerous product? Okay, no more suspense. It’s Johnson & Johnson Baby Shampoo.

What are these ingredients? They are the potentially cancer-causing chemicals dioxane and something called quaternium-15 that releases formaldehyde. Those don’t sound quite so cuddily. They almost sound scientific.

Johnson & Johnson makes a weak effort at defending their policies by saying that the US and a few other countries don’t proscribe those ingredients. That raises the question, are they implying that babies in the U.S., Canada, China, Australia, and Indonesia apparently are more resistent to cancer than those in other companies? Maybe it’s a case of Congress being less resistent to bribery.

Their weak defense effort is belied by the following announcement – which basically constitutes an admission. The company has announced that it will reduce the levels of dioxane and eventually eliminate the quaternium-15. In the meantime, make certain your health insurance policy covers your children for cancer. They may be phasing in such coverage.

Don’t worry. Johnson & Johnson cares for you. True, they do make other products that contain chemicals but they know how to adjust. While not yet changing their main baby shampoo, they now offer a new baby shampoo without those vile, dastardly, scientific chemicals. It’s call Johnson’s Naturals – and it only costs twice as much. Remember that, for both shampoos, the bottles cost more than the contents.

See? There’s a health care company that loves you just as much as does Goldman Sachs.

To your kids’ health, and Johnson & Johnson’s financial well-being.
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It’s about time someone got serious. It obviously isn’t going to be anyone inside the Beltway.

The politicians consider their careers and their juvenile ideologies more important than the well-being of the nation and its people. Why are we not blanketing this country with recall petitions. Why are we not exhibiting a similar, reciprocal disdain for their jobs and their well-being?

Have they finally emasculated the American people? Have they accomplished what al-Qaeda failed to do?

Lets break this down into three parts.

Who is destroying jobs?

How do you create a job in the economy? By putting money into play in the economy. How do you destroy jobs? By taking money out of the economy.

So, what are our genius leaders doing? They are cutting the money that the governments put into the economy. They may end up having to eliminate some jobs.

To ensure that, if there are any jobs created in the future, they will not put much money into the economy, they are eliminating the unions.

For some reason those teachers, firemen, policemen and other government employees don’t spend as much money when they lose their jobs. That means that those places where they used to spend money can’t afford to maintain their full staffs. The business may even fail. Who woulda guessed?

The idiots are screaming for smaller government. They are claiming that the government has grown uncontrollably under Obama. The truth? The number of  federal employees is less now than under his predecessor. Am I confused about what smaller means?

Some might claim that smaller simply means spending less than previously. Well, salaries are a significant share of expenditures. This is the second of three years that Social Security is frozen. The broken economy’s only positive is that our interest payments on the debt are smaller. Maybe they could scream at a slightly attenuated decibel level.

There wouldn’t be too much of a problem in this hour of need if we had not lived on a credit card during more normal times. Instead of paying our troops’ way in various foreign wars, we elected carny hustlers who promised us we wouldn’t have to pay for anything.

Had we behaved responsibly back in those days, we would have plenty of credit to draw on to juice the economy now. The stimulus was less than half what it should have been and only about 40% was used effectively.

An estimate expects the loss of a million more jobs if the debt ceiling is not raised. My own guess would be far higher. Also, it would mean an increase in interest rates. That would be the same as a major tax increase but the money would be going to the banks, rather than to help the government pay its bills.

Who is refusing to make jobs?

Have you tried to get a loan lately? A car loan? Okay. A loan to start a small business? You’re kidding. A loan to expand a business? No way.

The banks have nearly $2 trillion dollars available. They borrow money from the Fed to purchase T-bills. Those T-bills don’t pay much interest but they’re doing enough volume to help create record profits. By the way, those investment banks want the debt ceiling raised so they can continue their “investments.”

The non-banking corporate sector is sitting on even more funds. They are using some of it to buy back their own stock. Some is also being used to acquire other companies at fire-sale prices. These mergers and acquisitions usually result in significant job losses.

While both the banks and major corporations are flush, by ensuring the general economy stagnates, they can use that as pressure to encourage further deregulation.

Who can create jobs?

There are two parties that can create jobs and help us recover from this mess. The first is the government. They have the ability to both create and borrow money. Most of that creation is through the auspices of the Fed. That needs to be changed. The Fed needs to be eliminated or so transformed as to be unrecognizable.

The newest estimate is that we need an investment of at least $3.1 trillion in infrastructure. Actually, that’s just in highway infrastructure. Why should we spend our money that way? Because it’s not our money. Our kids and grandkids will have to pay for it. Since they have to pay for it, let’s spend their money on something that they will be able to use – while we get some jobs now.

Depending on the government to get us out of this mess is necessary to get us started; a stimulus, if you will. There is another source of jobs. It is far and away the largest source of all.

What is this mysterious economic sector? Is it the big corporations? Absolutely not. Is it the wealthiest two percent of the population? Wait while I stop laughing. Is it small business? Far less than most people believe and far less than we need. So, who? It’s the middle class.

Our economy is known by the professionals as a consumer economy. Why? Because at least two-thirds of our entire economy is based on consumption. The more we consume, the greater the number of jobs required.

Politicians of both parties have either contributed to the decline of the unions or stood by while it happened. I have never belonged to a union but one must be blind or stupid not to see their economic importance and the role they played in creating the middle class. As the unions have declined, the middle class has declined. First, it lost the race with inflation, reducing its purchasing power. Recently, there has been a marked decline in the number of people composing the middle class.

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Eureka!

There; I said it.

While everyone else is looking at pieces of the problem, I found the crux. Therein, I also found the solution.

The only catch is that our leaders have not the intelligence, inclination or interest in fixing it.

Unless you have slept through the entire debt ceiling debate you have heard someone claim that 48% of Americans pay no tax. Those who wish to protect the wealthy and the corporations from the IRS consider it to be the ultimate argument. It would still be a stupid argument even were it true.

Follow this, step by step. In their ignorance or prevarication, they have inadvertently pointed the way.

That 48% are not paying income tax, as defined by the IRS.  They don’t make enough. Don’t you envy them? They do, however, pay FICA (Federal Insurance Contributions Act).

FICA is composed of 12.4% of your salary going to Social Security and 2.9% dedicated to Medicare. Ones paycheck will reflect half of that 15.3% tax. In order to not scare people so much the law says that the employer covers the other half. That half is also a part of ones compensation. It is simply a hidden tax for the employee.

As a point of interest, compare that 15.3% the capital gains tax of 15% for those who gamble rather than work.

That 48% pays sales tax, state income tax, gas tax, excise taxes, real estate tax, car tax, numerous fees and more. They pay no tax? Bat feces.

Social Security and Medicare taxes are generating surpluses, which are put into trust funds, until Congress replaces them with IOUs. That means those entitlement programs are paying their own way and making loans to those programs that don’t.

Cutting back on those programs hurts those programs and makes more money available in the trust funds for the Congress to borrow. Making their slush fund larger will not encourage congressmen to economize. It solves nothing for the government nor for the people, just for the politicians. They will be back for more cuts in the future.

Well, there’s no solution there.

That leaves increasing revenue. The parasites on Wall Street are adamant they will not pay their share. So, does that mean we suck more out of those on the bottom rungs of the economic ladder? Yes.

What?

‘splain yourself, Lucy.

The cost of the federal government as a percentage of the Gross Domestic Product is close to a post-WWII low. Then why are we running such debts? Because of a shortfall of revenue. This is not a problem that began in this millennium.

Some of that is easily explained by the Chicago School of Economics’ trickle down theory, an impractical joke. Cut taxes and job creators will create more jobs. But, in the real world, we have lowered their taxes and they didn’t produce; at least not in this country.

The wealthy and the corporations not pulling their own weight makes us justifiably angry but something else they have been doing is of greater import. Something else has been far more insidious, far more destructive of the country, the economy and the people.

You’re angry that we bail out the gamblers, the freeloaders, the parasites. You wonder what they could have done that was worse.

They set about to destroy the unions. They largely succeeded. The middle class was the strength of our economy and thereby the foundation upon which our status as the superpower has been based. The middle class came about only through the existence of the unions.

They didn’t stop with their victory over the unions. They set about dismantling the entire middle class. Our highest inflation-adjusted personal income happened in 1973. The oil embargoes of 1973 and 1979 started the descent. Trickle down and deregulation turned a temporary setback into a decline and fall of at least a couple of generations.

The relative size of the middle class has shrunk. That 48% not earning enough to pay income taxes is your proof. Masses of people continue to be booted from the middle class. Wages and salaries are not keeping up with inflation. Fewer people make enough to contribute to the non-FICA revenue.

So, the government remains the same relative size while revenue decreases. Simple subtraction. Too much subtraction. Too many negative notations.

The real solution is to make it possible for more people to attain and remain in the middle class. Then they will make enough to get the attention of the IRS. Then the government will have sufficient revenue. Wow! A revenue increase without a tax increase.

Our leaders can try this and try that. They can try all of the solutions they want. Some may work. Most won’t. Regardless, unless we reverse the decline of the middle class those other solutions will just buy more time for us to endure the decline of our country and its economy.

I didn’t promise an easy or quick solution. It will take time. But, it is the only long-term solution. Will it happen? Not unless we try something new – electing competent grownups.

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Oh, how I wish this were the knockout blow. Sorry, it’s not. Nothing will ever get through the thick skulls of the ideologues.

How many times must I tell you? Ideologies are oversimplifications by the intellectually constipated that appeal to the intellectually lazy and are usually wrong? Harsh? Hardly. Regrettably, my vocabulary is inadequate to do that subject justice.

Most people are merely victims. The powers that be control the media, the curriculum, the government. Sadly, any alternatives are available almost exclusively from questioning the almost universally accepted. It’s no surprise that everyone accepts such tripe as engraved on stone tablets.

I saw a report today. It stated that states making drastic budget cuts were experiencing worse unemployment and economic results than states that increased spending to deal with our financial crisis.

Wisconsin’s Governor, Scott Walker made himself the poster child for laying the blame on state employees while giving tax breaks to business. However, he wasn’t the only practitioner of this ideological absurdity.

From the report there were 24 states that took similarly drastic steps. Twenty-five didn’t. Yes, I know there are 50 states. Perhaps the statistics from that last one were not available in a timely manner. Or, it may have neither increased nor decreased spending.

Those numbers are sufficiently comprehensive for averages to account for any outliers due to a unique circumstance in this state or that. I am aware that imposing budget butchery on a state is not the only possible variable. But those variables are often found to go hand in hand with the mindset that is willing to apply such cuts.

Let’s take a look at the numbers first. Then we can analyse them.

My first thought was, of course. You cut that many state employees; the unemployment rate rises. The unemployed tend to spend less and the state cuts other spending. That means less money flowing through their economy, so it declines. Simple.

Then I looked at the numbers. The states that increased spending saw decreases in unemployment of .2%. The cost-cutting states? Increases of 1%. Was that solely due to state employees? No. Private sector employment went up 1.4% in the 25, while employment dove 2.1% for the budget cutters.

The difference in economic growth was also dramatic. There was a .5% rate of growth versus a contraction of the economy of 2.9%.

We were assured that those budget cuts would juice up the economy. They would mean that the private sector would create so many jobs we would be begging for college-educated immigrants. So? Were are the clowns jobs? We know where the clowns are. They were elected.

These little goofs probably believed what they were saying. They have never been accused of being geniuses. After all, they were just parroting the lines provided by the Koch brothers and friends. They remind me of Joe Theismann’s famous quote. “Nobody in football (substitute politics) should be called a genius. A genius is a guy like Norman Einstein.”

So why didn’t it work out as promised? There are many reasons; none of which fit in their bumper sticker ideology. One factor that is essentially a mandatory partner to such heavy-handed budget cutting is fear. The businessmen, some of the very ones ordering those cuts, saw such drastic action as portending the worsening of the economy. Ironic, is’t it? They helped create a self-fulfilling prediction.

It’s called leadership, even if is incompetent leadership. Those evincing some faith in an improvement, by investing even just a little in the economy, led the business community in the direction of hope, and engendered enough confidence to instigate growth.

The same ideology, the same people that urged the drastic cuts are the very ideas and people that created the global economic meltdown that is approaching 4 years of age, with no end in sight. Why do we listen to these people? We should be able to forget about them until their parole hearings come due.

It really is simple. The problem with the economy is too little money flowing through it. The answer is not to further reduce the flow. The consumer will hold on to what little they have until they feel the economy is improving.

The banks are making record profits without investing and with no risk. Their arms can be twisted to encourage them to invest in America and its people. The ideologues will scream that it is anti-capitalist. Good. Because that is just where the answer is hiding. Laissez faire capitalism is the problem not the answer.

Corporations have been and are being led by trepidatious leadership that inspires neither hope nor expectation of growth. The leadership on The Hill and in the Oval Office needs put the county above the Beltway games. They need to face the facts and convince business and consumers that we all need to sacrifice and invest in our futures, while kicking Wall Street out of their offices and back to Lower Manhattan.

While we seem to be lacking the intelligence to escape the clutches of ideologies, we must have leadership. None of the candidates for president nor any of the officers of Congress have ever shown any. A soft voice is acceptable . . . if it is accompanied by a big stick, and a willingness to wield it. Where is Teddy Roosevelt when you need him? Obama thinks he can handle it by being a teddy bear. It’s not quite the same.

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It is now okay to own up to your obsession with Betty Crocker or Ronald McDonald. As a kid I found myself attracted to the Morton’s Salt young lady. A handful of salted peanuts can bring up memories of days gone by.

Carrying a torch for Sara Lee or Big Boy was never really akin to bestiality but now you are equals. I would caution, however, that some of these attractive ladies are considerably older than they appear. Even Little Debbie is 55 years old.

Though parts of the Deep South held on to their anti-miscegenation laws until the very last gasp, they were not to be found bringing up the rear in jumping into bed with big business.

I need to leave this aspect of the situation. My wife says I am already taken. Besides, in seeing a historical romance novel, I am reminded that, at my advanced age, all romance is historical.

The ruling by the Supremes makes no sense on any level nor from any perspective. I would highly recommend reading, or re-reading, the article I wrote at the time of the Citizens United ruling. Otherwise, I will have to reprint it here. The title of the article was Supreme Stupidity.

One can show how ridiculous the decision is by poking fun of corporations enjoying rights that only make sense for humans or humans trying to enjoying the special privileges and advantages only permitted to corporations. How would you like to be a corporation?

My apologies for bringing up a sore subject but it hasn’t been too long since you sent in your gift to the IRS. It helped to be able to deduct that mortgage interest, didn’t it? Did you deduct all that you spent for the principal? On food and drink? On travel? On vacation? On all of your wife’s clothes? On her trips to the beauty shop? On her lipstick and perfume? You didn’t?

Why would you not deduct everything you spent? Your fellow corporations do. Food and drink are your personal energy sources. Oh, don’t forget to deduct the toilet paper. Corporations are only supposed to pay taxes on their profits – whatever remains after all of their spending. Then they call in the experts to take advantage of the subsidies and other giveaways their lobbyists bought for them.

How much profit did you make last year? How much did you have left over for savings?

Investors in corporate human beings have the protection of limited liability. If someone slips on your sidewalk and incurs an injury costing a few million dollars, your $48,000 average income might not be enough to cover it. But, the court can hold you fully liable. That’s when you need to tell the judge that you are a corporation.

Did you commit a crime? Richard Nixon wanted to know. J. Edgar Hoover wanted to know. Did you think? Tailgunner Joe McCarthy wanted to know. They wanted to get you out of their way. They threw a few in jail. But, those human corporations never came to share a cell. There are no banks in prison for illegally taking your home. There are no health insurance corporations serving time for ripping off the government (you) of billions of dollars. There are no drug companies on death row for lying about the safety of their medications, even when the number of victims is a large multiple of those lost in the Twin Towers.

Our church had nearly 12,800 in attendance to commemorate Easter. Not a single corporation showed up to exercise their rights of freedom of religion. Why don’t they exercise their right?

Corporations fail to exercise their right to trial by jury frequently enough for my taste. I’m referring to the 6^th Amendment right in criminal trials, not the 7^th Amendment right in civil trials. I’d be willing to make a career of serving on juries for the opportunity to play a role in holding my fellow corporations people to account.

The previous paragraph begs the question of how corporations are themselves able to avoid serving on juries.

A question comes to mind. Given, a corporation can own a firearm. How does it bear that instrument? But the real question is, in those states and localities requiring the bearer attend safety classes and/or exhibit a degree of proficiency on the firing range, has their right been abridged by such a requirement?

If a corporation has the right to unlimited free speech, in order to effect the voting, how is it possible to deny them the right to vote? If having more money provides them more free speech, does having more money also translate into having more votes? If not, how is that justifiable in light of the expanded rights regarding speech?

If money is speech, is an impecunious mute denied his right? In a land proud of its political equality, why is political speech powered by a factor that is based on an inequality that we glory in? Would equating money with speech not require everyone to have the same amount of money to ensure equality? Is this just a countervailing stratagem to compensate for the loss of privileges that ensued when ‘one man – one vote’ was enforced?

If logic, common sense and comedy can be stretched to give constitutional rights to corporations, there is no possible legal rationale sufficient to keep the franchise from further extension. I am inclined to think that animate beings would be next. Bunny rabbits do present the possibility of overly diluting the prerogatives of people and human beings unless we can legally restrain their proclivities for procreation. I’m uncertain as to how to handle a case such as Harvey’s.

As corporations are inanimate, my earlier supposition that animate entities would likely be next in line could very well be mistaken. Would it be fair to give man-made, or corporation-produced, objects preference over natural ones? It might be presumptuous to favor items made by humans over those created by God nature.

Perhaps I should have read the Supreme’s decision. Surely they covered all of my questions and concerns therein. After all, they are all educated, reasonable, rational, disinterested diviners of the inner thoughts of the Founding Fathers.

Since those First Daddies readily made known their fear and hatred of corporations, they must have changed changed their minds once they got to heaven. I wish I was also blessed to be privy to the thoughts of those heavenly beings. Absent that, we should count ourselves blessed that the Almighty’s hand ensures the Court is always populated with that ability.

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We all agree.

Everyone thinks that the government’s primary responsibility is to help us. Well, at least some of us.

The problem is that we don’t agree on who the government should help. Some say help those who need help. That’s just silly.

It’s the upstanding parasitic plutocrats who will create a few more jobs in Canada, France or Brazil when they use your gift from the federal storehouse to acquire their next private jet. Mubarak set a new standard for them with nine of these upper class necessities, these ultimate penile substitutes.

The Enemy?

If your career choice is being a moonshiner, growing marijuana or holding up Seven-Elevens, government is your enemy. Otherwise, it shouldn’t be.

People are going around shouting that the government is your enemy. Listen carefully. They aren’t saying just that the government has done or is doing something to harm them – beyond requiring them to pay taxes, of course. They are saying that the very concept of government is your enemy.

Perhaps when they grow up they will appreciate the words of Oliver Wendell Holmes, “Taxes are the price we pay for civilization.” Perhaps not. Many demonstrate an apparently unbridgeable gap they must conquer to comprehend civilization.

“A society is judged by how it treats the least among them.” That rule has been attributed to Gandhi, Churchill, Truman and many others. Whomever, it is the very basis of civilization. Although, archeological evidence shows that our “barbaric” Cro-Magnon antecedents went to great lengths to care for members of their group needing assistance. It would seem that too many of our contemporaries have regressed a few score millennia.

Confucius, 孔夫子 K’ung Fu Tzu, is credited with one that is complimentary to it, “In a country well governed poverty is something to be ashamed of. In a country badly governed wealth is something to be ashamed of.” According to the old sage, the poor in this country have no reason to hide their faces.

These political Neanderthals, these libertarians, these juvenile acolytes, or adulators, of the late comedian Ayn Rand are profoundly anti-civilization.

If you are of the persuasion that the United States is, or should be, a civilized nation, you must also write them off as anti-American, despite their propensity for wrapping themselves in the flag. Also, egocentric political ideologies that object to helping those in need are in contradiction to Christianity and other religions. Caring for those in need is, simply, the litmus test for determining whether one is truly civilized, truly a patriot and truly religious.

Most of these people are unaware of how anti-civilization, anti-American, anti-Christian they are. From either intellectual laziness or incapacity, they have partaken of the political pablum fed to them by those who are full, knowing members of those categories. They are simply fools and tools. Some of the true villains are those I address next.

The Smartest Man On Wall Street? In Washington? Anywhere?

The geniuses pictured above all played major, definitive roles in bringing about the worldwide economic meltdown that we continue to enjoy. Did you remember to send them thank you cards?

Some fight under the banner of the Democratic Party. Some fight under the banner of the Republican Party. Actually, they are on the same side. They all fight the class war against us.

Do these parasites really believe what they infect the world with? It’s difficult to know. They do formulate the themes of the propaganda. We must remember, it’s not that uncommon for people who create and purvey lies to be taken in by their own handiwork.

They agree on all major policies. They all want big business to be unfettered. Their “Golden Age” is sometimes called the Era of the Robber Barons.” They have modified their image since the turn of the last century but they are direct descendants of those that hired the Pinkerton National Detective Agency to murder people who wanted enough to feed their families and educate their children for the better life they dreamed of for them.

The Newest Wonder Boy

Now the media have a new darling. Once again we are being told how this backwoods bozo is the master of the national budget.

Of course they leave out a few details. They use the journalistic equivalent of PhotoShop to turn Miss Piggy into Helen of Troy.

Did they tell you that he received over half a million dollars from the insurance industry? Did they tell you that ranks him above all other US Representatives from Wisconsin. It also ranks him above both of that state’s Senators.

Forget that he’s a prostitute. Capitol Hill is teeming with them. My initial thoughts about him brought to mind the Scarecrow from the Wizard of Oz. It’s hard to explain why. The Scarecrow was aware he had no brain. He wanted a brain.

They have almost nothing in common. And besides, the Scarecrow was too good of a dancer to end up on a reality show. This pitiful wannabe is likely to follow the career path of Tom Delay.

The Congressional Budget Office is a nonpartisan entity of Congress. It is responsible for providing all members their analyses of bills having an economic impact. In fact, it is generally acknowledged to lean just a bit to the right.

The CBO says that Ryan’s budget will cost a minimum of 700,000 jobs. That’s no big deal because those are jobs of government employees and those of suppliers to the government.

Another party that frequently weighs in is the Republican Study Group. It is a group of self-styled financial experts from among the Republican members of the House. They announced that the loss of those 700,000 jobs was a positive development. They say that since most of those losing their jobs are highly skilled and college graduates, putting them into the job market will further depress wages. You see, this group is not too smart. They often make such public pronouncements, that tell us what their real intentions are.

Exactly what is Mr. Ryan promising from his magnum opus? He tells us it will save Medicare. Presently, Medicare has a 20% co-pay. I, as many others, cover that with a private ‘medigap’ plan. Adding in monthly premiums, the average senior will pay as much as 22-25% of his or her medical costs. Ryan’s plan is estimated by the CBO to cost seniors at least 68% once it is phased in.

This means that most seniors will do without needed care or lean on the younger members of their family. Also, the procedure will be drastically changed. He proposes giving each senior a $15,000 voucher with which to purchase an alternative to Medicare coverage. Anyone pricing such individual plans will either laugh or cry uncontrollably.

While Mr. Ryan is generous enough to index that $15,000 for inflation, he uses the index for an almost overall inflation rate that comes in around 2%. Medical cost inflation runs from 2.9% up into the double digits. Another factor is that these plans will be purchased annually. That means that each year the rate will be further increased by the factor of age.

Not only is that amount completely unrealistic, it requires, as he puts it, ever-aging seniors to negotiate coverage details each year. They must do this with an industry famous for its perfidy; famous for its ability to increase the complexity of its products beyond outsiders’ comprehension – always to their advantage.

There are other features of his budget plan that target seniors, in addition to those aimed at children, the poor, the middle class, college students and their families, hell, everyone not in the economic top 10%.

Well, all those spending cuts will reduce our deficit. Ooops. Actually, the deficit will increase for the first 10-12 years. The budget might possibly be balanced in 70 years. I can’t wait. Seriously, I can’t wait.

With all of those cuts, why will it take his plan so long to reach its putative goal? You must remember some items, defense, for instance, will increase.

The cuts are described as modest at $4.3 trillion. I bet you thought to yourself, “Myself, that’s a bunch of cutting.” Don’t forget with whom you are dealing. The plan calls for $4.2 trillion in tax cuts. Oh. That explains a lot.

The nominal corporate tax rate, at 35% is second only to Japan. Mr. Ryan wants to reduce that to 25%. Instead of just swallowing that load, let’s take a slightly closer look at corporate taxes.

That 35% in the nominal rate. That means the law says that is the rate. Reading deeper into the tax code will bring to light a forest of deductions, exemptions, subsidies and other goodies. The ‘real’ rate then seems to become about 17%. That puts the US corporate tax rate at a much more competitive level. That puts it well into the lower half of developed nations.

Look at the chart. It would show a lower percentage but it only covers 1950-2003.

But we can’t stop at 17%. When 68% of corporations pay no tax (think General Electric’s nearly $15 billion untaxed), it lowers the effective rate even further. A quick calculation puts the effective rate at less than 5.5%.

If corporations are still moving jobs, capital and profits overseas at 5.5%, I’m guessing that lowering the nominal rate to 25% will not eliminate the deficit.

Those treating the government as their enemy may be on to something. Their aim should be slightly adjusted, however. It’s their own little darlings; their own ideological “friends” that are the enemy. It is the Paul Ryans who we and the government need protection from.

Mr. Ryan named his little plan The Path to Prosperity. He failed to say whose prosperity. I don’t think he liked the stories of Robin Hood. He seems to have identified with the Sheriff and King John. Somehow, rob from the poor and give to the rich just doesn’t have the same ring to it – at least not to me.

But, what do I know? After all, he is the media’s newest fair-haired Wunderkind*.

*German: Child Prodigy

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I pay more taxes than General Electric. You pay more taxes than General Electric.

Technically, they pay more, just not to the United States Government.

For some reason, though the bulk of their business income comes from this country, they always seem to lose money here and make tremendous profits overseas. Why didn’t TurboTax do that for me?

General Electric’s slogan is “Imagination at Work.” That’s nice. It would be nicer if some of that imagination devoted to tax law was diverted to something their customers could use. A truly imaginative act would be to bring jobs and tax revenue back home.

GE is known to have the premier tax law firm in the country. It is an in-house law department consisting of about 900 lawyers. While making massive layoffs elsewhere, it appears that department is safe from cuts. This, of course doesn’t count their lobbyists giving congressmen pre-written tax law changes that some of those 900 have developed.

Where do they find these imaginative tax experts? The IRS. The Treasury. Every tax-writing committee in Congress. While they propagandize you to believe that government can’t find its rectum with both hands, they find it to be a recruiting goldmine. Is it possible our bureaucrats aren’t overpaid riders on a gravy train?

One of the services the government is supposed to render is to regulate and inspect nuclear power plants. It turns out they are very shorthanded. It has been years since some of the 104 plants in the US have been inspected. GE is the leading builder of nuclear power plants in the world. They even have them in far off exotic places, like Japan. I’m wondering if they might be shorthanded because they are insufficiently funded.

GE hasn’t forgotten its poor, bedraggled executives. It generously gives $14,000 to each one to pay the costs of having their individual returns done. This payout is deductible, of course.

How many times have you heard that lowering the taxes on corporations and the wealthy will allow them to create jobs? In 2009 GE reduced its workforce by 19,000. That is a little misleading. They actually eliminated 35,000 jobs. It doesn’t look quite as bad because they acquired 16,000 new employees when they purchased a Central American bank. I am unaware of a lot of their US employees relocating southward.

The following are some figures cribbed from Senator Sanders web site.

Over the past five years, while General Electric made $26 billion in profits in the United States, it received a $4.1 billion refund from the IRS.

Goldman Sachs in 2008 only paid 1.1 percent of its income in taxes even though it earned a profit of $2.3 billion and received an almost $800 billion bailout from the Federal Reserve and U.S. Treasury Department.

Chevron received a $19 million refund from the IRS last year after it made $10 billion in profits in 2009.

Over the past five years, Carnival Cruise Lines made more than $11 billion in profits, but its federal income tax rate during those years was just 1.1 percent.

Those are just the tip of the iceberg. A study covering 1998 to 2005 found more than three-quarters of major corporations paid no tax. Major appears to be defined as revenue of $250 million or more. That doesn’t seem so major with so many raking in the billions.

You often hear the tools proclaiming that the US has the highest business tax in the world. Not true. Japan leads in that category. If we count what is actually paid, rather than the published rate, we would find the US at the bottom.

Companies don’t move overseas because of taxes. They move to pay lower wages, avoid health and safety rules and to employ more compliant workers. Do you like that iPad that was made in China by what the international community has called slave labor and child labor?

Apple admitted their Chinese factories used child labor. However, they did get upset when an audit showed that even the lax Chinese labor laws were being violated and the children were being poisoned by having to handle some of the components without protective gear. Is it possible that Steve Jobs would have a billion or two less if he didn’t take advantage of these kids?

The governors of Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, Florida and, I feel certain, other states, quickly offered tax cuts to businesses. Then they try to compensate for the lost revenue by cutting education ($900 million in Wisconsin alone), police, firemen, unemployment compensation, parks, health and other services you might use.

Is the budget deficit a major problem? Yes. How are we going to deal with it? French fry fryers and Walmart greeters will just have to dig a little deeper. Personally, I think we can do it. I found a quarter on the sidewalk only yesterday.

In case you didn’t realize it, you are very generous to these corporations. Back in the 1950s, when our economic engine was hitting its best performance levels ever, the corporate share of the governments revenue was 30%. By 2009, their contribution had fallen to 6.6%.

Not only is a one-sided class war being waged against the people of this country, they are subsidizing the enemy.

I have never been eligible for the Alternative Minimum Tax. You may have noticed some mention of it. I was surprised to learn that there is also an AMT for businesses. It’s on the books but I find no evidence that it is being implemented. Enforcing that could go a long way towards making the deficit smaller.

How about putting our IRS ahead of tax collection entities of other countries? The law could easily be written to require a company that pays taxes to other countries to pay the full corporate tax rate on domestic income, without deductions, unless they pay the US tax, with deductions, on all income.

How could we justify taxing them on overseas revenues? How many billions do we spend defending and representing their interests around the world? How much do these other countries provide for them?

Unless the Congress makes changes of this nature that require corporations to share the burden, they should not be taken seriously, nor be considered our representatives.

President Obama is concerned about the economy. He recently appointed Jeffrey Immelt as his chief outside economic advisor. By the way, Jeff is the CEO of General Electric.

I understand GE is to be banned from Gitmo, for humanitarian reasons.

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President Eisenhower, in his farewell address, warned us of the dangers of the military-industrial complex. Was he right?

The US spends more on “defense” than all other countries combined. According to official reports from 2003 and 2005, we have 737 military bases in 63 countries outside of the US and its territories.

This is intentionally misleading. Bases in Afghanistan, Iraq, Israel, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Qatar, and Uzbekistan are not counted. While there are ten Marine bases in Okinawa, official reports admit of only one. Not all troops are on bases. Personnel are stationed in 156 countries.

Those numbers are at least impressive, perhaps even stunning. Then there are the 6,000 plus bases in the US and its territories.

Domestically, the plethora of bases is not necessarily a factor of military considerations. Congressmen like to have the steady flow of tax dollars into their state or district that always seem to accompany military bases.

The number of military personnel has decreased significantly since my time. The bulk of the increase in military expenditures is in equipment. A few major conglomerates get the bulk of that bulk. Therein lies the trailing part of that complex. So, the taxpayers are shelling out gargantuan sums to a few corporations for unneeded “defense.”

Some people are getting fat off the government teat. Let’s just call them a part of the elite.

Banks were originally intended to provide funding for other businesses. Businesses need money for start up, to meet salaries, for inventory, for expansion. Banks should represent less than 5% of the economy. They now exceed 20%. Last year, over half of all profits went to banks. This represents a severe distortion of the economy. It is unsustainable.

These avaricious parasites with their fossilized ideology have created more debt than the sum total of all assets on Earth. They think of themselves as Masters of the Universe, even after their stupidities destroyed trillions of dollars in value around the world. Countries are going bankrupt. Families are being cast out on the street. They award themselves bonuses that would embarrass King Midas. Did you get a thank you card for your bailout?

We can’t forget the drug dealers and insurance companies. Our congressmen certainly didn’t forget them. You said yes when your congressman asked if you wanted to subsidize the memberships of PhRMA (Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America) and AHIP (America’s Health Insurance Plans), didn’t you? You were awfully generous. They both have America in their names but don’t let that fool you. That’s not where their loyalties lay.

So What?

You knew all of that. Why bring it up again? Because I’m going to put it into historical perspective. I’ll use it to predict the future. Isn’t that worth the rehash? It’s going to be fun. Well, maybe fun isn’t quite the right word.

The invention of agriculture was a boon, at first. It allowed people to stay in one place long enough to build substantial shelter. They had time to do that because agriculture normally allowed for enough free time to devote to other pursuits; or, even a bit of leisure.

They were able to produce surpluses most years. However, an occasional drought or flood or locust could bring a famine. They soon decided to store some of their surplus for those lean times. From their own village, town or city there might be a bad person who stooped to theft. Thieves could come from neighboring populations. This required someone to be in charge of a granary; someone to care for it, watch it, dole it out when necessary.

It also made necessary such new inventions as police forces and armies. These people couldn’t devote the necessary time to farming but had to take some of the surplus to survive. The keepers of the granaries appear to have become chieftains, lords and, eventually, local kings. As the communities grew and the leaders became accustomed to special status, their appetites grew.

They became rulers. They wanted special clothing and other adornments. They had friends and relatives who deserved special treatment, as well. This required craftsmen who wouldn’t have time for farming either. They needed a share of that surplus.

The king needed a great wall or an impressive pyramid or something else to impress the people. So, it was necessary to impress them into corvée. This resulted in less surplus while the demands on the surplus grew. Sometimes the king needed to expand his kingdom. His ego needed a boost but for the people it just added to the load to be borne.

Those farmers who had a surplus and leisure time now were subsisting on what was left after the elite took all of the surplus, and more. Their leisure time was spent on required, unpaid labor for the gratification of the elite. What began as a boon became a burden.

It is interesting to find large numbers of stone knives in the Indus Valley when it was in the midst of its Bronze Age. While the elite had the advantages of metal implements and the soldiery had metal weapons, chariot parts and such, the common people were forcibly kept in the Neolithic Age.

The result of this mismanagement of resources was the demise of civilizations and disappearance of great empires. I haven’t analyzed every fall of empire but would rate this as the primary cause of most and at least a contributing factor in the remainder. There may be other factors even when this is the primary culprit.

It happened in the Indus Valley. It happened to Sargon the Great and his successors. It happened to at least two, perhaps three, of Pharonic Egyptian civilizations. It happened to the Mayan, possibly their predecessors, the Olmec, and likely their successors.

Sometimes the end comes by just a total collapse. More often, a neighboring power provides the coup de grâce. These usurpers would not have the capacity to bring down the great, over-the-hill power had it not destroyed its own power, its own economy. In a nutshell, the elite overreached. Their own egos and pleasures blinded them to the reality of how vulnerable was the house of cards upon which their delusions were based.

Does that sound familiar?

My late wife died in 1974. She never had to work outside the home. A single income was sufficient. But, 1973 was the peak for average income in the US, adjusted for inflation.

As a bank supervisor in Los Angeles, we scraped by. Moving to Atlanta, our prospects improved. From 1966 to 1973 we bought three new houses; each larger than the previous one. We bought three new cars. We went on multiple foreign trips each year. Sure, I worked for Delta and the flights were free but the hotels and car rentals weren’t. I also began taking flying lessons; acquiring my commercial license with instrument and multi-engine ratings. I also returned to college. The money was always there.

That was not bragging. That was just to remind you of how our economy used to be. The jobs I had at Delta were ramp rat, passenger service agent, auditor of the caterer and meal planner for all flights out of Atlanta and computer programmer. What happened to the average income earner?

There was an oil embargo in 1973. There was another in 1979. They caused a considerable hiccup in the economy. Then came St. Ronny.

He gave us Supply Side and Trickle Down economics. He also gave us Arthur Laffer’s curve and Milton Friedman’s calcified theories. David Stockman, Reagan’s economic guru left the administration in due time and wrote a book. In that book he admitted that it really was Voodoo economics and that they knew it while they were selling it.

We went from the largest exporter of manufactured goods to the largest importer; from the largest importer of raw materials to the largest exporter; from the largest creditor nation to the largest debtor. All this transpired from 1981 to the end of the last administration. Without a major war or extraordinary economic trauma, Reagan increased the debt by 189%. Those who remember those years fondly should remember that they were paid for by credit card. The bill has come due.

The simpletons that followed in the Clinton administration were of the same ilk and, though the numbers show a modest improvement, it was nothing to be proud of. Rubin, Summers, Greenspan and Gramm provided the finishing touches. The present administration’s economic team belongs to the same club. Does it seem odd that the malefactors that brought us this latest disaster get trillions of tax dollars while aid to the poor for heating oil is cut? Multi-billion dollar bonuses for the elite while the dedicated teacher of your children is taking a cut?

While we were becoming a 3^rd-world country and tax breaks were given to corporations for exporting jobs, the income and wealth differential of the elite and the bottom 80% grew almost exponentially. The signs and portents of demise that the elites of the great civilizations and empires of the past ignored have been ignored by our very own special people.

What comes next? One guess. When will it happen? I don’t want to spoil your fun by giving the exact date. You might run out and sell every US equity short.

Have a nice day.

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There are a few truisms in politics. It is obvious that the Democrats have yet to learn them. It appears necessary to take them back for a review of PoliSci 101.

Any nationwide election is multifaceted. This one was especially so. That means both the mistakes and correctives are many. I can cover them all but most of you have lives. So, I’ll touch on just the most glaring problems and their remedies.

Okay, class. There is no need to take notes. You must, however, pay attention. Truancy is its own punishment.

Friends and Enemies

Friends and enemies. There is a difference.

You dance with the one what brought you, not bought you. In 2008 Obama energized some existing constituencies. He also developed others. He had enthusiastic support from progressives, from unions, from youth, from women, from Blacks, from Latinos, from those who realized what the plutocrats and corporations had done to them and to their country.

He has spent that enthusiasm. Many of those in the groups still support him but many have put themselves at some distance. Hope and Change have been supplanted by Disappointment and Frustration.

They didn’t just decide one day to change their attitudes. It was brought about by the policies, positions and prostration of the administration. The White House and congressional delegations need to acknowledge their culpability and accept the blame. If they refuse to do so, they will lose on every point.

Not a single Republican in Congress voted for Obama. Not a single one will cooperate on the issues important to his constituency. The people that put him in office are important. Bipartisanship would be nice, but it is not the Holy Grail. It would make his job easier but its absence should not seen as his failure. Blind devotion to it will ensure his failure.

There was also the matter of trying to placate the Blue Dogs. The role they played in weakening the President was critical. They are a bunch of ideologues who actually think they understand economics and even other topics.

They love being called moderate, as though that was honorable. It may be when the center is the center but not when the entire political spectrum in this country rests on the right. It just means they are not as extreme right as some others.

The Blue Dogs paid a price. Even their constituencies didn’t see them as a recognizable political animal. They were seen as being as confused as their message. They were Republicans wearing a Democratic name tag. Of the 54 Blue Dogs, 31 are now gone and 3 others are in races too close to call. Good riddance.

Leadership

Leaders don’t always lead in the right direction. Leaders aren’t always nice. The most recent Bush was a leader. He saw himself as a leader. He told us he was a leader, or decider, or whatever. He acted as a leader.

The people accepted his claim of being a leader. Many who disagreed with him on almost every point willingly accepted his leadership.

People really, really want leadership. Admittedly, they were tired of LBJ’s and Nixon’s brands and thought they didn’t want a leader. So, both parties offered them non-leaders. The people quickly realized that they really wanted a leader. How conscious they were of what they wanted may be debated but those wants were there.

A conductor doesn’t just stand on the podium and see what happens. A conductor doesn’t expect a member of the stagehands union to thrill the audience with a virtuoso performance. He knows who to expect to contribute. He expects a concerted effort from them. He leads them.

Part of leadership is a clear objective, a clear direction, a clear message. All of that gets muddled in the attempt to bring the opposition on board. The opposition gets a free trump card by simply refusing to play. They don’t need a policy. They don’t need answers. They don’t need solutions. They just need to be seen as standing firm. Why? Because, while different leaders may follow different policies, firmness is a constant of leadership.

But, you say, we need to position ourselves and govern from the middle. Wrong. That is not the middle. It is the muddle. Perhaps Abraham Lincoln should have been advised to move to the middle. The middle is treacherous. One must be on guard on both sides. Being to the right or to the left leaves only the other side to be guarded.

Who won this election? The Republicans didn’t win by moving to the middle. They won despite making a hard right. Again, they won by displaying one aspect of leadership: standing firm. One was enough. It was one more than the Democrats evinced.

Is governing from either the right or the left the correct way? Not necessarily but it is a lot easier. And, the people will prefer it and reward it. That easier factor is particularly important when one is not very accomplished at leading. The only two accomplished leaders we have had during my lifetime were FDR and Eisenhower. Leaders are rare.

Someone will blurt out that St. Ronny was a real leader. Sorry. The Lipper was an actor. He wasn’t even very good as an actor, except he had that leader role down cold. Real leadership does require a bit of actual leading.

Talk to Them

With all of the money spent on campaign ads, it may be difficult to think that either side failed at effective communications.

It isn’t a matter of volume or money. It’s a matter of clarity. It’s a matter of selling what you have to offer or what you have done, not what your opponent says you are selling and doing. The opposition has been quite good at defining the Democrats and their products for them.

What did the voters buy? It certainly wasn’t what they thought they were buying.

The voter was concerned about the budget. They voted for politicians vowing to add a minimum of $3.5 trillion to the debt. They wanted jobs. They voted for people who stood against removing the tax incentive for moving jobs overseas.

They want to blame someone for America not being number one but voted for reduced spending on education, policemen, firemen, unemployment compensation, research on renewable energy, building a high-speed rail system, repairing roads and airports, cleaning the air you breathe and the water you drink.

They voted for politicians who want to eliminate consumer protections on credit cards, foreclosures, manipulation of the stock market and anything else the parasites want. Many voters blamed the Democrats for Bush’s and Paulson’s bailout.

They voted for people who want to eliminate Social Security and Medicare, put healthcare out of reach for 40 million people, allow insurance companies to refuse to cover people for a preexisting condition (btw, being a battered wife is having a preexisting condition) while placing no limit on price increases (remember those 56% increases attempted in California).

Somewhere the Democrats failed to get their message out. Other than the debt mostly caused by them and tax cuts, the Republicans had no message of their own. They wrote the Democrats’ message and fed the anger and fear. The Democrats deserved to lose but the people will pay a heavier price.

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