WE MUST END THE SLAPSTICK ROUTINE OF CONGRESS
First, we the people need to end the Slapstick Logic of Millionaires in Congress and replace it with real solutions for real problems.
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MAKE SURE THAT THE TRUE CAUSE HAS BEEN IDENTIFIED BEFORE WORK IS BEGUN TO FIND THE SOLUTION
Never automatically assume that Congress has identified the real cause of any problem because it is highly likely that they have not. Furthermore, you can safely assume that the leadership of BOTH parties are more in agreement with one another than with the majority of the American people–however well they may perform their professional wrestler “hate” routine public displays.
Masters of the Non-Sequiter, they announce the cause of problem and then push for a solution that promotes their best interests. Non-sequiter is a Latin phrase for “it does not follow.” Thus they incorrectly assume (or try to force us to assume) that one thing has caused another. In so doing they commit a basic logical error that is referred to as the fallacy of the false cause and all that follows will also be false. And it won’t work folks–at least not for you and me.
For example, it is a logical fallacy to assume that Big government spending has caused our debt.
As long as the American voters accept this false cause as true, we are hooked into their propaganda and we will debate and squabble, united in agreement to what really is the false cause, but not the solution. That is exactly what we see Congress doing in their current deadlock over raising/not raising the debt ceiling. Adjusting the debt ceiling has very little, if anything, to do with resolving the problem–at least permanently.
This is also where their good cop/bad cop routine for the rich comes into play. It is to the advantage of the wealthy leadership of both parties for people to believe that big government spending has caused our national debt. The outcome will be a win/win for the rich and a lose/lose for the majority because our only solutions will be 1) to raise the debt ceiling so they can borrow even more money (totally insane) or 2) to cut expenses. If we let them persist in this fraud, the millionaires in Congress will end up taking huge cuts from entitlement programs such as Social Security and Medicare. Then this extra money will be put into tax coffers that will then be used–not to pay down debt, or to even repair our infrastructure. Instead, it will be handed over to corporate Wall Street War profiteers to pay for more government war contracts. Some money from this will of course be recycled back to the millionaire elected officials in Congress as they own stock in these corporations. [I guess we have to hand it to rich for understanding at least part of the concept of recycling.]
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The Family as an Analogy to explain the Current Congressional “Solutions” being proposed for big government spending.
We have a family of four adults and they have a budget. They all live in the same big house. They all work and earn money. They contribute their money to the common household budget. The mother and two adult children contribute 25% of their income to the household budget which represents a chunk of their spendable income. The father who earns considerably more money pays 17% of his income to the household budget and he complains about that. Some years he makes up excuses to pay even less. Some years he even contributes nothing to the household budget. One day the family wakes up and they are deep in debt. The father insists that they must stop spending so much of the household budget, but the mother and two adult children are already scraping by. The only things to cut are more of the grocery budget. So they do that and the mother and adult children are hungry. The father doesn’t mind because he buys expensive lunches away from home. (Oh, I forgot to mention. The money is kept in a sugar bowl in the kitchen and the father is forever taking from it for this and that little extra for himself. Also their home is falling down around them because there is not enough money in the family budget to repair it.)
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The leadership of the two parties will put on a good show. They have had almost 25 years practice at it–ever since their rich leadership kicked out the League of Women Voters in 1987 and the two parties formed the Commission on Presidential Debates, their own nonprofit (501)(c)(3) Corporation sponsored by private contributions from foundations and corporations. Walter Cronkite referred to this commission as the biggest fraud that was ever perpetuated on the American voters in our history.
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In determining the “solution” to their falsely identified problem, they are sincere in their arguments for the solution and therein lies the smallest of differences between the wealthy leadership of both parties: The Republicans want to take the entire cake while the Democrats are willing to leave a few crumbs. But my fellow Americans, we must remember that crumbs are not enough for a decent life. We must also remember that we, not the rich, are the ones who paid for the cake in the first place by building this country with the sweat and contribution of our labor. Yet, by their propaganda, the leadership of both parties try to make us look as if we are the thieves and beggars.
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WE MUST UNDERSTAND THE TWO UNDERLYING ROOT CAUSES OF THE NATIONAL DEBT:
1) Wages have not kept pace with production. The rich have kept the lion’s share of the profits for themselves. Thus the economic chasm between the rich and the rest of us has deepened.
This chart says it all for what we have allowed them to do to us. We are not lazy as many of them call us. While production has gone through the roof, thanks in great part to our labor, wages have not kept pace accordingly. The wealthy have been robbing us for the last thirty years and that’s a damnable unfortunate fact on our part that we allowed them to abuse us this way for so long. But don’t expect these people to have a conscience and set things right now without a huge battle because they won’t. We are going to have to fight them with all we’ve got. We are going to have to get as mean as they are–and they are mean in case you haven’t noticed. All you need to do is to read some of the cruel and crude remarks of people like Alan Simpson to realize the extent of their callousness. We are going to have to turn our backs on them if we are to survive. But we can do it if we unite because we are, after all, the majority.
2) Beginning with Ronald Reagan, Tax Cuts for the Rich have continued to shrink our nation’s coffers and grow our national debt.
In his first term as president, Ronald Reagan’s tax cuts for the rich took our nation from the status of an international lender to the status of an international debtor. He didn’t even have a war to support. How bad have the tax cuts for the rich affected our nation and its debt?
I find it interesting and somewhat hopeful that a Tea Party site on the Internet has recognized the fact that three Republican Presidents are responsible for almost 93.5% of the U.S. national because of their tax cuts for the rich.
ReaganBushDebt.org. is a site that tracks the amount and percentage of the United States debt attributable to three presidents, who are together responsible for $13,423,581,010,833.50, which is 93.49% of the national debt of the United States since the beginning of our nation. This site is maintained–not by “socialists” but by Tea Party members.
At least they have identified and are promoting education regarding the cause.
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I know that President Obama graduated from Harvard and that Harvard graduates are known for their braineatrics, but I would like for him to answer this question:
We had the Bush tax cuts for 8 year and the result over those 8 years as reported by the Washington Post was zero net job growth. Tax cuts for the rich and job creation have absolutely zero correlation. That is a proven fact. So, Mr. President, what was your justification for supporting their continuance for another two years?
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(1) Additional information regarding logical fallacy of Big Government Spending as the cause of the problem
Government spending should always be viewed as a percentage of the GDP. In 2007, the last year before this recession, Government Spending was at 19.6% of the GDP. That is exactly 1.1% LESS than Government Spending was in 1977—more than 30 years prior. The thing that has changed are tax breaks for corporations and the rich. We need to return to the tax structure of 1977 if we want to repair our economy and build our democracy.
Why do the leaderships of both parties continue to perpetuate this myth?
As long as the American public believes the myth of “out of control government spending”, the rich can continue to dismantle what shred of democracy we have left. Politicians can continue to pretend that cutting public spending: laying off teachers, attacking public sector workers, raiding pensions, closing hospitals, and eliminating essential services for children, veterans, and the elderly are the solutions.
YES, IT IS THE LEADERSHIP OF BOTH PARTIES WHO ARE DOING THIS, AND YES PRESIDENT OBAMA IS AS GUILTY AS ANY REPUBLICAN.
He is the one who appointed senile, rabid, right-wing Alan Simpson to head up his deficit commission. Obama is the one who appointed Jeffrey Immelt, CEO of GE to be one of his financial advisors. Now I ask you, what kind of financial advice do you think that the CEO of an outfit like General Electric, Reagan’s mentor, the man who began the tax cuts for the rich and put us in this hole in the first place is going to offer?
