1. Rich people give donations to politicians
2. Politicians give things to the rich.
It really is that simple.
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American Politics in summary:
1. Rich people give donations to politicians 2. Politicians give things to the rich. It really is that simple. (An Oldie, Sept. 2011, But Still True)
By plf515 Daily Kos Why would anyone vote Republican? Well, here are 10 reasons. 1. You are a bigot It's true that not all Republicans are bigots. But if you ARE a bigot, the Republican party will be much more your group than the Democratic party. Remember that there are lots of ways to be a bigot: You could be a racist, a homophobe, an Islamophobe, or lots of other things. 2. You like eating, drinking and breathing poison. Many Republicans are calling for or voting for shrinking or eliminating agencies that protect us against poison. They seem to think that the corporations will do the right thing, without any pressure from the government. Uh huh. Read The Jungle. Look at the way Monsanto is hiding facts about Round Up. Look at food safety and outbreaks of E. Coli. Corporations exist to make money. They will do so any way they can. The government needs to stop them from doing so in ways that hurt people. 3. You think the rich don't have enough money The idea that giving more money to rich people (via tax breaks) will help poor people is nonsensical and has been shown wrong time and again in history. Huge tax breaks for the rich (a la George Bush) don't work. 4. You don't support our veterans The Iraq and Afghanistan Veteran's Association (IAVA) rates every member of congress on how well they support our veterans. In the Senate, 9 people got A or A+: All were Democrats. 30 got D or F: 29 Republicans and one Democrat. More on this 5. You like big deficits Since the end of WW II the ratio of debt to GDP for the nation has gone down in 9 administrations (3 Republican and 6 Democratic) and up in 7 administrations (6 Republican and 1 Democratic). The largest increases by this measure were GW Bush's 2nd term; GHW Bush, and Reagan's first term. The largest decreases were the three terms right after the end of WWII (Truman and Eisenhower). The last decrease under a Republican was in Eisenhower's 2nd term source 6. You don't believe in free speech. The American Civil Liberties Union is the premier defender of our civil liberties, including the right to free speech. That's free speech for EVERYONE; from Nazis to Marxists to Fred Phelps to anyone else. They rate politicians, including governors, senators and representatives. 12 people got a 100 rating: All were Democrats. 65 people got a score of less than 10: All were Republicans. Only 6 Democrats got a score under 50 (Joe Donnelly, Michael Ross, Collin Peterson, Joseph Shuler, Mark Critz and David Boren). Only 2 Republicans got scores over 50 (Olympia Snowe and Mark Kirk) Full list 7. You like big government The Republicans like to claim they are against big government. It's a lie. They only object when government helps people. But they are supporters of the Patriot Act; they want the government to say who you can marry; they want the government to forbid abortion; they want the government to be able to spy on you without restraint. Unfortunately, many Democrats agree with them on some of these, but to find opposition to these big government ideas, you have to look to the Democrats. 8. You want government to hurt people, but not help them This is really just a summation of some other points. 9. You are greedy, short sighted and rich You really have to be all three for this to work. If you're rich but not short-sighted, you know that, in the long run, when there is huge income inequality, it leads to things like stock market crashes and revolution, and everyone loses. In a revolution, it is often the rich who lose most. If you're rich but not greedy, you recognize that helping others is a good thing, and that the government assuring that people have a safety net is a good thing as well. 10. You like torture The Democrats don't exactly shine here, but the Republicans are much worse. It was, after all, Dick Cheney who bragged in his memoir about being a war criminal. It was Don Rumsfeld who opined that a problem in Abu Ghraib was that they weren't torturing prisoners enough. And it is mostly Democrats who have objected to torture. Torture is wrong. It's also stupid. It doesn't work. People who are tortured will say ANYTHING (true or not) that they think their torturers want to hear. GOP 'payback' to white working class that voted them in: Cut earned income tax and child tax credit12/1/2014
Ian Reifowitz Daily Kos member When working people elect Republicans, they get screwed. First, some data. In the recent midterm elections, a study by the Public Religion Research Institute found that white working-class voters—defined as those lacking a college degree, and whose jobs paid an hourly wage—voted for the Republican over the Democrat for Congress by a whopping margin of 61 percent to 26 percent.Got that? Good. Also, the "vast majority" of recipients of the Earned Income Tax Credit—and remember, that credit only goes to people who earn enough money that, without it, they'd be paying income taxes—are white, according to data collected by the National Bureau of Economic Research. Finally, the 2009 Obama stimulus package expanded the Child Tax Credit to make more working class families eligible. We don't have exact data on the racial composition of those who benefited from the expansion, but given that about half of families in poverty are white, we can extrapolate that somewhere around half of beneficiaries are white. Still with me? Okay. Now check this out, from a New York Times article about a deal in the works that centers around making corporate tax cuts permanent: The emerging tax legislation would make permanent 10 provisions, including an expanded research and development tax credit, which businesses and the Obama administration have wanted to make permanent for years; a measure allowing small businesses to deduct virtually any investment; the deduction for state and local sales taxes; the American Opportunity Tax Credit for college costs; deductions for employer-provided mass transit; and four different breaks for corporate and charitable giving.Smaller measures already passed by the Senate Finance Committee, from tax breaks for car-racing tracks to benefits for racehorse owners, would be extended for one year and retroactively renewed for the current tax year. [snip] Left off were the two tax breaks valued most by liberal Democrats: a permanently expanded earned-income credit and a child tax credit for the working poor. Friday night, Republican negotiators announced they would exclude those measures as payback for the president’s executive order on immigration, saying a surge of newly legalized workers would claim the credit, tax aides from both parties said. It's worth noting that the deal would also mean the expiration, in 2017, of tax credits that support the development of wind power because, oh noes, the oil and gas industry thinks they are unfair. Doesn't the oil and gas industry receive billions in tax breaks? Er, well, hey, look over there!The absurd hypocrisy of that aside, think for a second about how Republicans understand payback. President Obama does something Republicans don't like on immigration, and their idea of payback is to stick it to working-class Americans who have kids, most of whom—when we are talking about whites—just voted to make them the majority party in both the House and the Senate. At this point, the only thing standing in the way of the loss of those tax breaks for working Americans is President Obama. Oops. I guess the lesson of the story is: be careful who you vote for. A better lesson of the story is: Republicans are boot-licking corporate sycophants who hate working families. |
About Bill PritchardBill is a Liberal Democrat, DEC and DWC member, volunteer photographer, and a graduate of Penn State University College of Science, Biology. He spent over 30 years at U.S. Steel Gary Works managing the operation and maintenance of waste water treatment and water recycling facilities. He retired to Panama City, FL, in 2001--where he is needed and he's not going away. Categories
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