Enough Is Enough

If I hear or read about another billionaire claiming that the current economic woes we are suffering as a nation is due to our “entitlement” programs, I am going to scream. The latest in the long line of billionaire apologist is Pete Peterson. Mr. Peterson, is a longtime opponent of Social Security, Medicaid, and any other government programs targeted to help the needy, who appeared on Charlie Rose. According to Mr. Peterson it is not greed and speculation that has reeked havoc on our economy for the past 30 years, it is the entitlement programs. All this time I have been thinking that not being able to know when you’ve had enough is the problem. Come to find out I am looking in the wrong direction. Greed has been around for a long time, entitlements have not. The Crash and the Depression occurred prior to entitlements; I wonder who Mr. Peterson blames those on.

I believe the Social Security Trust Fund belongs in the first tier of classic oxymorons. In the first place, the Social Security Trust Fund should not be trusted, and it is not funded. We anesthetize the public with highly reassuring long-term statements that the trust funds are solvent for decades. Yet, we do not tell the public that the payroll taxes of our children and grandchildren would have to double to cover the costs of Social Security and Medicare. That is an unthinkable burden. We do not tell the public that whether you have a trust fund or not, you still face the same three hard choices: increased taxes, cut benefits, or try to borrow unprecedented amounts.

Now how much would we have to borrow? I think it’s time we started thinking in cash flow terms, because these programs are obviously pay-as-you-go programs. The projected cash flow deficits for Social Security and Medicare go from a modest $25 billion in 2003, to a projected $783 billion in 2020, and trillions of dollars thereafter.[1]

These statements on the surface seem reasonable enough, we have not done a good job funding and fixing the entitlement programs. Instead of facing some tough realities and questions the politicians have continued to ignore them, afraid of providing the American public the ugly truth, ugly truths do not win elections. The problem I have with these guys is they present the picture as though the entitlements were the only item in the budget. So rather than saying it is a matter of priorities they present the picture as a zero-sum game. Nowhere do they mention the military budget, the tax-cuts, or the other government programs that make up the complete budget. We are left to believe that the entitlements exist on some island, isolated from the other expenditures.

Mr. Peterson discussed the Prescription Drug benefit that was added to Medicaid as an example of making a bad situation worse. I agree, but he doesn’t mention that he is a Republican and it was the Republicans who created the Bill that forbid the Government from negotiating prices for the prescriptions. I wish just once these guys would take responsibility for the messes they make. The Republicans built in astronomical profits for the benefit of the big pharmaceuticals, just as they did for big oil who is recording unprecedented profits. Nowhere does he mention the billions of dollars that were made during the mortgage meltdown by those same companies who are now crying bankruptcy. Is it me or did billions of dollars just disappear into thin air? Someone had to profit from all of those loans, why is this information never debated? Nor, did he mention that it is the Republicans who are trying to bankrupt the system to force its collapse.

Mr. Peterson stated that he supports John McCain and was asked about Senator McCain’s flop on the tax-cuts, he presented the standard line that what McCain was against was not tax-cuts per se but tax-cuts without spending cuts. McCain and his supporters are backpedaling so fast from statements like the following it blows the mind:

“Mr. President, the principle that guides my judgment of a tax reconciliation bill is tax relief for those who need it the most—lower- and middle-income working families. I am in favor of a tax cut, but a responsible one that provides significant tax relief for lower- and middle-income families. And I commend Sen. Grassley for moving in that direction. But I am concerned that debt will overwhelm many American households. That is why tax relief should be targeted to middle-income Americans. The more fortunate among us have less concern about debt. It is the parents struggling to make ends meet who are most in need of tax relief.

“I had expressed hope that when the reconciliation bill was reported out of the Senate Finance Committee, the tax cuts outlined would provide more tax relief to working, middle-income Americans. However, I am disappointed that the Senate Finance Committee preferred instead to cut the top tax rate of 39.6% to 36%, thereby granting generous tax relief to the wealthiest individuals of our country at the expense of lower- and middle-income American taxpayers.”[2]

Senator McCain and Mr. Peterson have no problem today with the Feds bailing out Bear Sterns and the Wall Streeters, it is the average American who Senator McCain was concerned about in 2001 who don’t deserve any relief. Mr. Peterson said that while it was a dangerous precedence, he supported the bail-out to stem broader market drops. You have to love this line of, “we hate to do it and we know its bad business, but we have to. He gave the same excuse for all of the liquidity funds they have received from China. He didn’t seem to have any problem with China owning large sections of our banking industry. I’m no Nobel economist but even I know that can’t be a good idea.

Oh, by the way Mr. Peterson is making a donation of a billion dollars to help teach Americans how to save. First of all, how rich do you have to be to give away a billion dollars? Secondly, what he failed to mention is why the American family is in the situation it finds itself. Due to flat wage pressure being exerted by Mr. Peterson and his billionaire friends for the past 30 years, the wife has had to go to work to increase household buying power. After that money was spent, they began mortgaging their homes and running up credit card bills for expense money. Now that they have spent that money the well is now dry. And Mr. Peterson says if they had just saved money the economy wouldn’t be in this predicament. He wants consumers in a consumer economy to not consume or reduce consumption. That horse is already out of the barn, we have been bombarded since the age of television to buy. Where were the commercials for saving money?

[1] http://petersoninstitute.org/publications/papers/peterson0804.pdf
[2] —Senate floor statement during debate over President Bush’s tax relief package, May 21, 2001.

Read more!

The Language of Defeat

As I was channel surfing one night I came across Senator John McCain on the Charlie Rose Show. If these guys weren’t so frightening they would be laughable. As I was listening to him speak, I couldn’t get over how he kept using the same catch phrases from decades ago. It’s as if these guys are living in a time warp, this is still 1950 in their minds and nothing can change that. The rhetoric is still the “gunboat” philosophy that has characterized our foreign policy for a generation.

He continually used the buzz words, “Israel” and “projection of American power”. Is it just me or have these guys been cryogenically frozen for the last 60 years? The world has changed their view of it has not. As long as our foreign policy is being conducted by those who are still living in some “glorious past”, we will never be safe or free. We must adjust our foreign policy goals to reflect the real world and not some false assumption provided by “analysis” that haven’t seen the real world in who knows how long. The more we continue to bang the same song on the same drum the sooner we escalate our descent into irrelevancy. We are becoming nothing more than the sandlot bully, gone are the principles and credibility of democracy. They have been replaced by the tenets of greed and racism.

I think what shocked me the most was an exchange between Mr. McCain and Charlie Rose when Mr. McCain was talking about the Chinese building aircraft carriers and how that was something we needed to watch closely. According to Mr. McCain the aircraft carrier allows the host nation to project its power around the world. Charlie Rose retorted that we have aircraft carriers why shouldn’t the Chinese, it was at this point the hypocrisy became unbearable. Mr. McCain said that the difference was that the US “didn’t have a history of imposing its power on other nations”. Charlie Rose then asked if the Chinese had such a history and Mr. McCain said no, but they still had to be watched carefully.

First of all the line about the US not having a history of imposing it’s power on other nations by the use of aircraft carriers was ridiculous. I think Mr. McCain is suffering from selective amnesia, so just in case let me just refresh his memory. Obviously he has forgotten about Iraq, Grenada, the whole southern hemisphere, Cuba and the list goes on and on. For our leaders to go on television and make these types of statements, it is no wonder the credibility of the US is at an all-time low.

This rhetoric of good versus evil has to stop. The politics of the cold war must be replaced by the diplomacy of the new world. We can’t continue to kill those who don’t agree with us. At the same time we silence dissent at home by violating the very document that is supposed to stand for democracy. Before we start trying to repair what’s wrong in the world, maybe we should spend a little time righting what is wrong here in this country. With this shoot first and ask questions later foreign policy, it is we who have the rest of the world leery. Is America the source of all that is wrong in the world? No, but we have to accept our culpability where applicable and strive to not repeat the mistakes of the past.

The current crop of politicians and media types appear to have learned nothing from the past and are dead set on repeating the same mistakes. Mr. McCain and others, the world has changed and continues to evolve, it is a shame that you people have not. If my truths do not evolve, but remain steadfast in false premises then I have learned nothing. Worse than the fact that I have learned nothing is that with this mindset I am incapable of learning, which is not only foolish but dangerous. It is this mindset that will cause us to be defeated in Iraq as it has caused our defeats in the past.

There's no principles in what you say
No direction in the things you do
For your world is soon to come to a close
Through the ages all great men have taught
Truth and happiness just can't be bought-or sold
Tell me why are you people so cold

I'm...... Going back to Saturn where the rings all glow
Rainbow, moonbeams and orange snow On Saturn
People live to be two hundred and five
Going back to Saturn where the people smile
Don't need cars cause we've learn to fly On Saturn
Just to live to us is our natural high

We have come here many times before
To find your strategy to peace is war
Killing helpless men, women and children
That don't even know what they're dying for
We can't trust you when you take a stand
With a gun and bible in your hand
And the cold expression on your face
Saying give us what we want or we'll destroy

Saturn
Stevie Wonder

Read more!