For too long, Republicans have possessed a very narrow agenda for selecting their candidates. Basically, it has been a requirement of candidates to promise that they would not increase taxes.
Then George W. Bush came along, topping the “no tax increases” promise with huge, multitrillion-dollar tax cuts for the rich. And Mr. Bush delivered. The U.S. national debt has now ballooned up to $15 trillion.
Then came loud calls to lower the deficits. Nothing was held sacred. Not Medicare, the main health insurance for the elderly and the severely disabled. Not Medicaid, the only health insurance for the severely poor. And not Social Security, whose treasury has frequently been raided by both parties.
We all remember both political parties being so polarized that neither would allow for a compromise so the government could continue to pay its bills — and the failure of the “group of 12” to solve this mess, even though President Barack Obama offered to cut hundreds of billions of dollars from the aforementioned entitlement programs.
This betrayal by a Democratic president — to even consider cutting the benefits of the elderly, the disabled and the poor — has resonated throughout the Democratic community. Notable cracks in support for the president have widened in several vital areas. The 2008 enthusiasm for Obama from the youth of America has now dimmed to a whimper. More youths are attracted to the Occupy movement’s calls for attention to income inequality.
Every political party depends on its base to drive it to victory at the polls. This is where Obama has truly failed. He has totally ignored the liberal base — indeed, actually maligned us.
Obama has broken promises to the workers and the poor. In 2008, he promised to raise the minimum wage to $9.50 by 2011; it has stagnated at $7.25. His administration has strayed further and further from labor unions, a mainstay for virtually every Democratic political victory at the polls. The unions did not receive support for legislation that would have created a fair environment for unions to organize corporate workers. Obama has done nothing to stop the surge of outsourcing of Americans’ jobs. He has not fought to remove tax schemes that reward corporations for firing Americans.
Obama’s narrow focus on protecting corporations, rather than protecting the 99 percent, was highlighted again when he failed to veto a phony credit card “reform” bill. On Feb. 17, Mr. Obama visited Boeing headquarters and proposed cutting taxes for large and very profitable corporations. U.S. corporations, on average, pay 10 percent in taxes; thanks to tax-avoidance strategies, the official 35 percent rate is phony. U.S. corporations pay less than half what their foreign contemporaries pay.
Obama’s new budget also calls for making 79 percent of the Bush tax cuts for the rich permanent. These tax cuts will cause more teachers, firefighters and police to be fired. Children attending public schools will continue to have overcrowded classrooms and outdated textbooks. More public libraries will be closed.
In the 1980s, Canadians voted out both major parties. If they can do it, so can we. There are more than 50 vibrant and successful Labor parties around the world today.
Obama has let us down — but that doesn’t mean we need to stay at home on Election Day. A labor-based third party can and should be created in time for the 2012 elections. We deserve a real choice this time.
• Greenebaum won the Democratic nomination for a U.S. House seat in Maryland in 1984 and in California in 1988.
Comments (18)
Add commentVote anti-war, anti-bankster,
Vote anti-war, anti-bankster, pro-America.
Ron Paul 2012
Blackdog, if that's the way
Blackdog, if that's the way to vote, then it can be nobody but Ron Paul.
Debunking the Funk II
“multitrillion-dollar tax cuts for the rich...” and then the debt ballooned? How about NO operating budget for going on 4 yrs, which the Dem-led Congress used like a credit card with no maximum limit. How about a progressive agenda that mushroomed entitlements as unfunded liabilities (Obamacare). Sorry, but taxing the begeebers out of the rich only stunts growth and generates a paltry fraction of the revenue needed to feed this beast.
“President Barack Obama offered to cut hundreds of billions of dollars from the aforementioned entitlement programs.” Right. From Medicare, which scares the pudding out of the seniors that actually EARNED the entitlement. It was a sleight of hand gesture to preserve the dubious “under a trillion $” price-tag for Obamacare. Oh, and then blame the GOP for forcing his hand. Pathetic.
“He has totally ignored the liberal base — indeed, actually maligned us.” Whiners. I could move to California, get on welfare, food stamps, buy an X-Box and get a permit for medical marijuana (then draw disability, too) and ride this out for a couple of years on a diet of Cheetos and Screaming Red Indo.
Consider the alternative...
Obama's not perfect by any means, and he has to deal with a congress controlled by the republicans. But consider what a disaster GWB/Cheney was. Can you imagine what it would have been like under McCain/Palin??
Ron Paul's election is a fantasy. He'll never be nominated. Will he run as a third party candidate? Possibly.
Romney is essentially just a white Obama. Despite his claims of conservatism, once nominated he'll run to the center. Conservatives know that. My biggest concern about his election is in regards to the Supreme Court replacements he'd nominate. The last thing on Earth we need is another Clarence Thomas or Antonin Scalia.
Give Obama 4 more years, then perhaps give Romney a shot.
I'd rather not have a
I'd rather not have a programmable robot in office. Romney does what the GOP heads tell him to do, and that is scary. And Ron Paul? Anti-war--great! Anti-bankster--also great! Pro-life? Meh. Glibertarian? Hell no. Gold standard? WTF.
Any man who is so cynical as to think the government's role is so limited that it can't even MAKE LIFE BETTER FOR PEOPLE (which was sort of a founding value of this very government) is a man who doesn't belong in government.
@LAt58
Congress controlled by Republicans? The GOP in the House is in damage-control mode. They're trying to nix any more spending initiatives, so I guess in a deficit environment owing to NO budget passed by the Dem-controlled Congress, "dealing" with the GOP means the man cant spend as much as he'd like.
We dont know what McCain/Palin would've been like; doesnt count.
I'd take a probable center over a certain left. You point to SCOTUS composition, which is important, but I'm focused more on the damage BO's done to us on the global level. The past three yrs of this incompetent thin-skinned megalomaniac will take yrs to unscrew.
Labor Unions Let Down?
"The unions did not receive support for legislation that would have created a fair environment for unions to organize corporate workers.????" AFSME and the AFL-CIO have already endorsed the President for the next election! With President Obama's promise of at least 2 more years in Afghanistan, who can argue?
No betrayal
Obama has done everything the liberal and eco freaks want. Lots of giveaways, Gov't has a hand in everything, shutting down refineries and other real life energy sources. He has squandered billions on green energy that has really turned out to be nothing but a scam. Liberals have no complaining to do.
Boy, judging by what all the
Boy, judging by what all the glassy-eyed conservatives are screaming, Obama is several orders of magnitude more nefarious than the Antichrist, less intelligent than Kim Kardashian, more incompetent than Homer Simpson, more egotistical than Donald Trump, and angrier than a Black Panther at a KKK rally.
I take it you guys don't understand what happens when you constantly sling hyperbolic statements divorced entirely from reality.
Here's a tip: if you can't actually come up with an real life examples for your criticism of someone (Obama, Bush, Bill Gates), you should probably step back and think about basing your criticisms on facts and not the other way around.
It's the economy stupid....or
It's the economy stupid....or more accurately your purchasing power. How many of you could have your wife or SO quit her job and not lose your house let alone maintain the standard of living you have here in Juneau? I'm guessing not too many. Now how many of you remember your mom being home when you came home from school back in the 50's, 60's or 70's?
Inflation numbers have been cooked like crazy since Nixon took us off the gold standard and the central banks went to work inflating bubble after bubble. Now every household needs two incomes to make ends meet and we wonder why our youth are having problems in school......
OBAMA
The economy was screwed up by GWB
@blackdog: we've been off the
@blackdog: we've been off the gold standard since FDR, you twit. Nixon ended the ability to convert dollars to gold. And needing two household incomes has nothing to do with inflation and everything to do with the fact that doubling the labor force increases its supply and means that workers compete with each other for labor, resulting in lower wages. Your little inflation fetish is a little strange, considering we aren't experiencing any out of control inflation.
Economics 101. Take it. Jesus Christ.
You could probably get a job
You could probably get a job with the PR department for the CBO but a legitimate investment firm wouldn't hire you to sweep the floors.
FDR started setting the price of gold and confiscated it so he could devalue the dollar but it wasn't until Nixon that the money supply was completely decoupled from reality.
In the early '80's my mom and dad rented a 3000sq ft house with 5 bedrooms, a 3 car garage and a hot tub for $850/mo in a nice neighborhood in San Diego. My mom used to be heartbroken that it cost $200 for TWO FULL shopping carts of groceries. I remember the first time I couldn't fill up a 5 gallon jerry jug with regular for $5. I think $850 might get you a sleazy one bedroom apartment today and I don't need a cart to carry $200 dollars worth of groceries to my car. $5 will get you a little over a gallon of unleaded.
Lower wages? My first minimum wage job paid me $4.25/hr back when there were still single income families making it. Today the minimum wage is almost double and nearly every household is empty during the workday (except public housing of course.)
Time to paste in a pretty graph that tells me to believe your fairy tale instead of my lying eyes........
Derrrrrrp!
Oh, blackdog, what are we to do with you? Minimum wage has not kept pace with inflation, this is a known fact. And middle-class incomes have about kept pace. Upper-class incomes, however, have skyrocketed.
In order to get a real picture of inflation, you need to compare WAGES to costs. Looking at costs alone tells you absolutely nothing. You probably do know this, but have repressed it in order make a conspiracy-theory argument (oh, the CBO has been lying this WHOLE TIME and no one's figured it out! How slyly and efficiently they work for an incompetent, inefficient government agency!).
Speaking of reality--is gold "really" valuable? Answer: no. But the gold standard does prevent government from reacting to financial crises. Like the Great Depression, for instance. It also stops us from increasing the money supply, which makes currency more scarce as more people are born (or emigrate to the U.S.).
You'd do well to read up on the greenback movement in the late 19th century.
My dad was USN 05 and made
My dad was USN 05 and made about $65,000/yr. Today an 05 in San Diego makes around $135k. The house we rented for $850/mo goes for around $3500/mo now. Gas is close to 5x, I'm guessing my mom would need to bring her banker to get out of the grocery with two full carts.....
BTW, mom's on a fixed income now and back in the '80's she could've expected to get 5% on a very safe investment like US bonds or CD's. I think I used to get 5% on my saving account. 10 yr bonds have about a 2% yield today.....
Your dad makes a lot of
Your dad makes a lot of money, far more than the average American. What's your point?
Uh, it's called 'inflation' blackdog
It's a worlwide phenomenon, and will be the thing that bails us out of our deficit hole. Note that it was higher under the republican presidents when you were growing up.
http://currencythoughts.com/2008/09/24/us-consumer-price-inflation-under...
I guess it bailed Zimbabwe
I guess it bailed Zimbabwe out of theirs.......oh well.....I think some of us get it.......
At least we can all agree that today in Juneau was stupendously beautiful......?