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The Real Reason the National Debt is So High

Sep 5th, 2010
by Tom.
1 comment
People wave signs at a tea party protest. | Reuters Photo

People wave signs at a tea party protest. | Reuters Photo

First, I want to tell everyone that I have been nursing a nerve injury in my left hand. It has caused me to not want to type much as there was no telling which keys my fingers would hit. The numbness is subsiding some and I am able to work the fingers again. I’m back, somewhat.

The tea partiers rant and rave about the national debt, but fail to remember just how it got to where it is today. This is from an article back in July from Politico:

Sixty-one percent of the 697 self-identified tea party supporters surveyed identified the federal debt as one of the “extremely serious threats” to the future well-being of the United States.

They blame Obama, of course, but here’s the real reason our national debt is out of hand:

Re:  The true cost of the Iraq war: $3 trillion and beyond

There is no question that the Iraq war added substantially to the federal debt. This was the first time in American history that the government cut taxes as it went to war. The result: a war completely funded by borrowing. U.S. debt soared from $6.4 trillion in March 2003 to $10 trillion in 2008 (before the financial crisis); at least a quarter of that increase is directly attributable to the war. And that doesn’t include future health care and disability payments for veterans, which will add another half-trillion dollars to the debt.

As a result of two costly wars funded by debt, our fiscal house was in dismal shape even before the financial crisis — and those fiscal woes compounded the downturn.

Where were these pasty old white men with their “big government” rhetoric in 2003?

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Secular America is Growing Fast

Apr 26th, 2010
by Tom.
1 comment

Re: Andy Ostroy: This Jew Says ‘Sorry Sarah, America is Not a “Christian” Nation

Tea Bagger with confusing message

Sarah Palin apparently hasn’t heard of Separation of Church and State. Here’s what she said at a Women of Joy conference in Kentucky last week, attended by 16,000:

“God truly has shed his grace on thee — on this country. He’s blessed us, and we better not blow it. And that’s why I talk about politics. Lest anyone try to convince you that God should be separated from the state, our founding fathers, they were believers. Hearing any leader declare that America isn’t a Christian nation . . .”

In her usual obnoxious, snarky, grating manner, Palin’s “any leader” reference was clearly directed at President Obama, who in a 2006 speech said, “Whatever we once were, we are no longer a Christian nation–at least not just–we are also a Jewish nation, a Muslim nation, a Buddhist nation, a Hindu nation, and a nation of non-believers.”

The nation is fast becoming a nation of non-believers. If you group atheists and agnostics with all the other secular and non-believer subgroups you get a number of people in the US totaling about 28 million. This figure is up 110% since 1990, and this is not counting the neo-pagans. In the meantime christianity has grown only 5% in the same time frame. The US is still predominately christian with over 150 million claiming to be christian, but there are enough secularists now to fill several states. The reason for the growth of atheism in the US is clear. The right wing fringe has hijacked the real christian message and has polluted it with hate and racism. They have poisoned christianity for anyone who may be considering it.

The well is poisoned for the catholics as well. Catholics look at the problems the church is having covering up their sexual perversions and they try to distance themselves from it using various excuses. The general public sees this as a credibility problem and rightly so. Who wants to join a church that boogers your kids behind the curtains and then tries to cover it up?

I was watching one of those christian infomercials yesterday morning, Sunday, April 26th, and the televangelist was speaking about socialism. He very calmly and softly spoke of taking action to urge your representatives in Washington to stop the spread of socialism in our government. Here’s the problem. Moving a congregation toward a political goal is not what church should be about and that kind of activity should be investigated as tax fraud. This is why we separate church and state. The separation clause was written to keep church out of state, but it was also meant as a means to keep state out of church. The clause does not do a good job of the latter as this kind of political speech happens regularly in the fundamentalist world. But, many people are turned off by these types of messages from the church pulpit. They want to hear a christian message, not a political advertisement. Also, they look at other more socialistic democracies such as France or England and realize that those nations are also predominately christian nations and they have no problem with socialistic programs. What gives?

The christian right wing fringe is anti-socialist. You see it on their signs, in their chants, and in their slogans. But are they really? Medicare, one of the biggest social programs, seems to be very popular with the tea bagger demographic. Social Security, a very socialistic program, is held onto tightly by the elderly tea baggers. They are even so mixed up as to complain about the public transportation in Washington DC when they went there for their big tax day rally. This hypocrisy is sending mixed messages. It is easy to see through the anti-socialist message to the real cause of their hate. They lost the election to a black man. No one wants to be a part of this kind of christianity.

I think that the number of folks who are turned off by the religious right and those who are just turned off by the hypocrisy are vastly more than the 28 million mentioned above. If you add up every person who claims that they are christian but either attend church rarely, or do no attend church at all, that 28 million would turn into 128 million. I this a christian nation? Not entirely.

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Fixing the Filibuster Part 5: Back to the Future and the Intoxication of Power

Feb 13th, 2010
by Tom.
1 comment

Re:  Sen. Tom Harkin: Fixing the Filibuster, Sen. Tom Harkin, Democratic Senator from Iowa, Posted: February 12, 2010 10:39 AM

Among other bills, Republicans have filibustered legislation to provide low-income energy assistance; efforts to strengthen the Consumer Product Safety Commission to ensure our children are not exposed to unsafe toys; and efforts to ensure that women are guaranteed equal pay for equal work.

The problem is not only that Republicans are using the filibuster to kill good bills that would help working Americans. The larger problem is that the Republicans’ indiscriminate use of the filibuster has made it all but impossible to conduct everyday business in the Senate. On an almost daily basis, the Republican minority — just 41 Senators — stops bills from even coming to the floor for debate and amendment.

There are more ambitions for the right than stopping all Democratic nominations and legislation. If you think this one out to its logical conclusion, you can see why the Republicans are going all in with this “anti-Obama” meme, hoping it translates into a throw-out-the-bums wave of support in 2010 and 2012. Obstruction is power, and they are wielding it indiscriminately on any move by the Democrats to govern, then they step in front of media cameras with statements that try to blame Democrats for not attempting bipartisanship. Every perceived exclusion is amplified whether or not it really excluded the Republicans or not. They cry foul that Democrats have private meetings to try to figure out how to govern around the obstructionism. The future looks bright to them through obstruction.

They don’t have to govern, being the minority, so they sit back a lob bombs at the Democrats who are increasingly frustrated that they cannot govern without the Republicans help. What motivates the Republicans to refuse to govern is power. Like alcoholics, they abused the filibuster until they became addicted and now they are sloppy drunkards with the power it wields. The latest evidence of that is the stunt that Senator Shelby (R-AL) pulled recently by filibustering the approval of over 70 Obama nominees for various positions in his government for no other reason than to reach into the pork barrel for his home state. Why isn’t Shelby driven from office in shame?

President Obama, recently interviewed by Jim Lehrer on PBS’s NewsHour, suggested that the if the filibuster is “used prudently, then I don’t think it’s harmful for our democracy. It’s not being used prudently right now. And my hope would be that whether a senator is in the majority or is in the minority, that they’re starting to get a sense, after looking at this year, that this can’t be the way that government runs.” It is too late for prudence. You can’t tell a drunk to stop drinking. The right-wing is one toke over the line and loving it.

What they hope to achieve, of course, is gaining back the majority in Congress and winning the White House, the ultimate prize, and then propel the country back to the future – the Bush years, the days of glory for the right-wing. They will carry the plan of obstruction out to its end by campaigning on the fact that Democrats couldn’t pass needed legislation because of their failure at bipartisanship.

It is imperative that a Bush-like power mad figure stay out of the White House. That will only lead to more economic ruin and more wars. It is time to do something to stop the right-wing plan to paint Democrats as fools and then highjack the government again.

Senator Harkin has introduced and bill, but it will not get passed. Harkin needs 67 votes to change the Senate rules and he will not even get 60, or 50 for that matter. Something needs to be done now, something that fights fire with fire.

Currently, it takes 60 votes in the Senate to “invoke cloture” — in other words, to end debate on a legislative measure and bring it to a vote. My legislation would permit a decreasing number of Senators to invoke cloture on a given measure. On the first cloture attempt, 60 votes would be required. But, over a period of days or weeks, the number of votes required would fall to a simple majority of 51 Senators.

…It takes 67 votes to change the Senate rules — which, I acknowledge, is a tall order. But, by introducing this bill, I want to shine a spotlight on the egregious abuse of the filibuster, and how that abuse is paralyzing our democracy and making a mockery of the concept of majority rule.

This is not a tall order. It is an impossible order. So, the “nuclear option” must be utilized by the Democrats to pass the good legislation for the people, like finance reform, the Consumer Protection Agency, health reform, and many others. This is done by a simple point of order on the Senate floor to declare the filibuster for any particular bill unconstitutional on the grounds of abuse of the rule and obstructionism. After that, a simple majority vote will override the filibuster. This is not in the Senate rules, but it has been done before.

 Reconciliation alone cannot get the new programs into place because the budgetary effects can be argued ad nauseum. The Republicans are using every drastic action they muster in order to discredit the President and the Democratic majority in Congress and it is high time that the Democrats used equal drastic action. It is time to move legislation forward at all costs.

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