Below you see one of the most progressive and labor/justice news outlets I see today. They reference other good outlets. Work hard to get the truth.....do not allow a captured media feed you propaganda!!!
Truthout
works to spark action by revealing systemic injustice and providing a platform for transformative ideas, through in-depth investigative reporting and critical analysis. With a powerful, independent voice, we will spur the revolution in consciousness and inspire the direct action that is necessary to save the planet and humanity.
Our Organization Truthout is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization dedicated to providing independent news and commentary on a daily basis. In order to remain free of bias and adhere to high editorial standards, we accept no advertising or corporate backing. Instead, we depend on our readers to support our work. All donations to Truthout are tax-deductible. For more information about our model and how we utilize our resources, please read our annual report. To donate to Truthout, click here.
There are two major policy agendas unfolding right now. One has to do with deconstructing the domestic social infrastructure and the other has to do with constructing the new social infrastructure. This is what Third Way corporate democrats call The New Economy. What it means is that the US will no longer be a sovereign nation of the people, by the people, for the people. It will be part of a global entity ruled by global corporations. DO YOU SEE WHAT THIRD WAY CLINTON DID TO AMERICA? DO YOU REALLY WANT TO VOTE FOR HILLARY, BIDEN, CUOMO, OR O'MALLEY.....ALL THIRD WAY CORPORATE POLITICIANS?
Below you see the Simpson-Bowles plan for budget reduction. Remember, the national debt was created by massive corporate fraud but these politicians are prepared to have the public pay down the debt by lost wages, benefits, retirements, and lost public assets and services. The downsizing of government is so severe as regards domestic spending and the budget moves so heavily to security, whether Homeland Security, National Security, and the military that you see where America is moving towards being no different than other second world dictatorships. They are breaking all regulatory agencies, all public justice agencies, all social services agencies down and replacing them with charitable groups like churches and non-profits just as in the Medieval days. Go to the poor house or beg at the church is what you see unfolding. Keep in mind these policies are being implemented by a democratically elected President running as a Democrat. We see that Third Way is corporate and wealth.....they are not labor and justice as is 80% of the democratic base. WE SIMPLY NEED TO TAKE BACK CONTROL OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY TO REVERSE THIS DIRECTION!!! IT CAN FALL BACK TO A DEMOCRACY IN SEVERAL YEARS TIME IF WE:
VOTE THESE INCUMBENTS OUT OF OFFICE AND RUN AND VOTE FOR LABOR AND JUSTICE CANDIDATES NEXT ELECTIONS!!
When you listen to these talks of compromise regarding the revenue neutral reduction of the corporate tax rate in exchange for cuts to social safety nets we know the subsidies and loopholes come right back. When they speak of raising capital gains taxes we know that corporations are becoming so rich.....albeit by massive fraud......that they will be taking all corporations private. There will be no stock market with publicly traded companies as we know it today. Corporate executives are busy using the Federal Reserve's 0% interest loans to buy back their own stock.
ALL OF WHAT YOU HEAR THESE POLS DISCUSSING IS SMOKE AND MIRRORS AS THEY COMPLETELY CONSTRUCT ANOTHER SOCIAL STRUCTURE THAT DOES NOT INVOLVE YOU AND I. Third Way corporate democrats are just as intent as republicans in getting rid of all that is New Deal and War on Poverty.....they see labor and justice as issues that take away from corporate profits and are moving to eliminate them.
The second article looks at the Pacific Rim Trade Agreement. This has been in the works for over 10 years and is about to make its debut. This is what drives Immigration reform, the restructuring of government under the guise of government debt, and the elimination of social safety nets. Third Way politicians are moving America in line with developing countries as regards quality of life, lack of justice, and autocracy and that is towards what the trade agreements move us. What they are doing is unconstitutional. Capitol Hill and the President does not have the authority to enter international agreements that threaten sovereignty or a citizen's right to participate in legislating through elected officials. THIS RIGHT OF CITIZENS AS LEGISLATORS IS THE FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLE OF THE CONSTITUTION AND THESE INTERNATIONAL TRADE AGREEMENTS COMPLETELY IGNORE ALL OF THOSE RIGHTS.
They are trying to eliminate the people's ability to change any law that is part of these trade agreements....which includes every aspect of public policy. Whether labor, environment, taxes, health care and education.....these agreements try to standardize all international laws for all participating nations. The overall effect is to bring first world countries down to second and third world status so as to meet conditions of the developing world. They intend to give global corporations the right to dictate what the business needs to be profitable with no citizen input. DO YOU SEE THAT HAPPENING NOW? YOU WOULD IF YOU LIVE IN A CITY LIKE BALTIMORE. IT HAS BEEN HAPPENING HERE FOR OVER A DECADE AND MARYLAND'S GOVERNOR O'MALLEY IS THE TEAM PLAYER FOR THESE POLICIES!
This was all the grand plan put into action during Reagan Thatcher of empire-building and Ayn Rand style wealth inequity. It took Bill Clinton and Third Way to capture the people's party.....the Democratic Party to hand it to corporate interests moving this corporate rule forward. REMEMBER, THESE POLS ARE TRAINED TO LIE. THEY WILL TELL YOU WHAT YOU WANT TO HEAR AND THEN DO WHAT THEY WANT. STOP LISTENING TO THEM!!!
WE CAN REVERSE THIS MOVEMENT TOWARDS EMPIRE SIMPLY BY RUNNING OUR OWN CANDIDATES IN ELECTIONS AND STOP LETTING THE DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL PARTY SELECT THE CANDIDATE......WHO WILL BE THIRD WAY.
RUN AND VOTE FOR LABOR AND JUSTICE NEXT ELECTIONS!!!
Simpson-Bowles 2.0 By Stephen Lendman on April 29, 2013 7:37 pm
Both men represent the nation’s ruling class. They want more wealth transferred from ordinary people to corporate America and privileged elites like themselves. They’re back with plan B. More on that below.
On February 18, 2010, Obama issued Executive Order 13531. It established the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform (NCFRR).
Two neoliberal ideologues head it: former Senator Alan Simpson (R. WY) and former Clinton White House chief of staff Erskine Bowles.
They head a 19-member team. It’s stacked with like-minded members. Their mandate then and now includes fiscal austerity for most people, unlimited wealth opportunities for corporate America and super-rich elites.
Plan A includes:
• ending or capping middle class tax breaks; home mortgage interest deductions and tax-free employer provided healthcare insurance are targeted;
• taxing capital gains and dividends the same as ordinary income;
• lowering income tax rates to 9, 15 and 24%; currently they range from 10 – 39.6%;
• slashing corporate tax rates from the top 35% rate to 26%; eliminating some deductions was proposed;
• making the research and development tax credit permanent;
• making deep Medicare cuts; increasing Medicaid co-pays; eliminating $54 billion from graduate medical education; and enacting “comprehensive tort reform;” doing so makes it harder for aggrieved patients to file malpractice suits;
• raising the Social Security retirement age to 69 by 2075; reducing cost-of-living increases; they’re now based on annual inflation rates; raising the payroll tax ceiling to $200,000; high-income earners benefit most;
• eliminating 10% of federal workers by 2015; doing so increases unemployment when reducing it should be prioritized;
• raising the federal gasoline tax by 15 cents a gallon; imposing “user fees” on motorists; at issue is having ordinary people fund the federal transportation and highway spending program; and
• cutting $100 billion in military spending; targeted are administration inefficiencies, weapons Pentagon officials don’t want, overseas force contingent drawdowns, and medical benefits for military retirees through less care and/or higher premiums and co-pays;
By 2020, NCFRR proposed cutting about $3.8 trillion. Doing so harms ordinary Americans at a time helping them should be prioritized.
Austerity is official policy. Republicans and Democrats agree. Major cuts are planned. They’re coming. Obama demands them.
Simpson and Bowles (SB) are back. On April 18, the Washington Post headlined “New Bowles-Simpson plan takes aim at deficit,” saying:
They’re “back in Washington with a new message for the nation’s policymakers: You’ve done the easy stuff. You’ve done the stupid stuff. Now it’s time to get serious.”
They briefed lawmakers on their latest plan. It proposes “far less in new taxes” and much greater Medicare cuts. It urges replacing across-the-board sequester reductions by hitting ordinary people hardest.
It eliminates the legal cap on government borrowing. It recommends letting the Treasury “keep borrowing as long as the debt does not grow as a percentage of the nation’s economy.”
It argues for $2.5 trillion more in taxes. It also wants cuts over and above what’s already agreed on. According to Bowles:
“I think this is our last chance. I don’t think there’s any chance after the end of the fiscal year because we’ll be back into politics again.”
“We’ve done the easy stuff. We put a cap on discretionary spending, and we raised taxes on rich people. What else are we going to do.”
Fact check
Medicare and Social Security are fiscally sound. Minor adjustments only are needed to keep them that way.
Since 1979, America’s top 1% tripled its share of national income. It went from 8% to about 24%. It keeps rising annually.
From 1993 – 2000, top earners got 45% of income growth. From 2000 – 2008, they got 65%. In 2010, it was 93%. Corporations also benefitted hugely.
From 1998 – 2007, corporate profits rose 10% a year on average. In 2009 and 2010, they increased 243%. Excluded are sheltered amounts offshore.
In 2012, corporate profits were 12.4% of GDP. It was the highest level since WW II. At the same time, worker compensation hit a 57-year low.
Increased sales didn’t produce profits. Cost-cutting did on the backs of workforces. Jobs, wages, benefits, and hours worked suffered. Productivity rose. Companies are producing more goods and services at less cost.
In 2011, profit margins reached their highest level in over 80 years. Federal, state, and local government tax cuts benefitted bottom line performance. In 2012, profit margins increased further. They grew by 7.6% compared to 4.6% the previous year.
High income households benefitted proportionately. They did so through equity appreciation, dividends, interest, rents, and other wealth increasing methods.
In contrast, ordinary people lost out hugely. Increasingly they’re hard-pressed to get by. Force-fed austerity promises worse.
Cutting Medicare harms seniors when they most need help. Claiming it’s going broke don’t wash. Healthcare overall is unaffordable.
Further cuts make it more so when most needed. Illnesses will go untreated. Pain, suffering and early deaths will follow. Bipartisan contempt for ordinary people assures it. Simpson-Bowles 2.0 ups the stakes further.
It proposes another $2.4 trillion in savings over 10 years. Around $2.7 trillion was enacted. It includes about $600 billion in new revenue.
It recommends a Social Security COLA based on chain-weighted CPI. It’s a scam. It’s the latest gimmick to destroy benefits.
It assumes when prices on some products rise, consumers choose lower-cost substitutes. Perhaps so for steak v. hamburger.
It doesn’t hold for rents, other housing costs, transportation, gasoline, electricity and other energy costs, as well as medical expenses. They’re highest late in life.
Simpson-Bowles (SB) proposes a new $550 Medicare Parts A and B annual deductible. They also want 80% coverage for Part A instead of the current 100%.
Doing so requires another $150 – $300 private insurance cost. Part B works that way now. If seniors want current benefits, they’ll have to pay more. Otherwise they lose out.
At issue is rationing healthcare. It’s already unaffordable. Ahead it’ll be more so. Cutting Social Security benefits compounds the problem.
SB also wants Medicare eligibility raised to age 67. At issue is leaving low-income 65 and 66-year-old seniors uninsured. It also proposed other non-defense discretionary (NDD) cuts. Doing so hits disadvantaged households hardest.
It targets Title I education for low-income students, Head Start, Pell Grants, low-income housing assistance, help for the homeless, and WIC nutrition programs.
On April 28, Simpson and Bowles wrote a Washington Post op-ed titled “A grand bargain is still possible. Here’s how,” saying:
“To be sure, some progress has been made the past two years. Policymakers have enacted about $2.7 trillion in deficit reduction….”
“Yet what we have achieved so far is insufficient. Nothing has been done to make our entitlement programs sustainable for future generations, make our tax code more globally competitive and pro-growth, or put our debt on a downward path.”
It bears repeating. Medicare and Social Security are fiscally sound. They’re not entitlements. They’re contractual federal obligations. They’re for eligible recipients who qualify. They’re insurance programs. Payroll taxes fund them.
Obama’s new budget reflects the worst of neoliberal harshness. It’s economically destructive. It’s another wealth transfer scheme. It hits ordinary households hardest.
Simpson and Bowles said it doesn’t go far enough. “That’s why we released a new plan” to go further, they said. It’s not “ideal,” they admitted. It’s not the only plan.
“It is an effort to show that a deal is possible in which neither side compromises its principles but instead relies on principled compromise.”
“Such a deal would invigorate our economy, demonstrate to the public that Washington can solve problems and leave a better future for our grandchildren.”
Simpson and Bowles reflect the worst of political Washington. They do so when around 23% of Americans are unemployed. Poverty, homelessness and hunger approach record levels.
They propose increasing the greatest wealth disparity in US. The gap between rich and poor is unprecedented.
They want America’s social contract destroyed. Force-fed austerity assures it. The criminal class in Washington is bipartisan. Simpson and Bowles are members in good standing. They’re point men for the worst of what’s coming. Better times are distant memories.
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.
His new book is titled “Banker Occupation: Waging Financial War on Humanity.”
http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanII.html
Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.
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We are organizing now to fight this assault on US national sovereignty. It is illegal....it is unconstitutional....and it undermines all of the protections of citizenship. It is nothing less that a coup-d'etat......We will need to take these trade agreements to court and to the Supreme Court to stop this usurping of national sovereignty!!
NOW YOU SEE WHY THEY ARE SIMPLY SUSPENDING RULE OF LAW AND SUCKING ALL PUBLIC MONEY TO THE TOP OPENLY AND FREELY.
We are hearing the 1% say that this will be Obama's LEGACY....
Transpacific Pact Worse Than People Realize
Apr 29, 2013
Press Associates, Inc. (PAI) – 4/26/2013
By Mark Gruenberg
PAI Staff Writer
WASHINGTON (PAI)—The proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a planned “free trade” pact that’s a top trade goal of the Democratic Obama administration, is far worse than predecessor pacts – and far worse than even its foes realize.
And that led a panel at Green Jobs, Good Jobs conference in mid-April to urge listeners to stop TPP before it starts, by denying President Barack Obama unlimited, unfettered authority to bargain any trade pacts without input from anyone else.
Congress took its first whack at TPP at an April 24 Senate Finance Committee hearing. Finance is one of two committees that would consider legislation to implement the TPP once Obama negotiates and signs it. Business interests, led by the Chamber of Commerce, were scheduled to testify to senators. Workers and their allies weren’t.
The TPP issue is important to workers, speakers said, because it presents a distinct threat to labor standards, environmental rules and even such simple things as whether a company can erect a factory in your back yard, without your permission.
Obama wants to present a completed TPP to Congress by October, reported Ken Peres, a top economist for the Communications Workers. He added TPP is a top goal of multi-national corporations who owe no allegiance to the U.S. or workers.
“The point of their agenda is to attack what they view as obstacles: Government and labor,” Peres said. “This gives you an idea of why corporations want to push this agreement.”
Hear Peres discuss the importance of labor working with environment on issues like the TPP.
Like other prior trade pacts, TPP would supposedly rip down tariff and other barriers in the U.S. and the other nations involved. Those 11 nations range from developed and advanced Australia and New Zealand to low-wage low-cost Vietnam.
It’s unfinished, but TPP already draws flak from unions and workers. The AFL-CIO, the Communications Workers, the Steel Workers and the Auto Workers oppose Japan’s bid to join the talks, citing its high trade barriers and refusal to allow imports, its currency manipulation, and the labor law-breaking by Japanese firms in the U.S.
And some 600 companies, including many multi-nationals, are “advisers” to U.S. bargainers, and get to see proposed U.S. text of the TPP. But only one consumer group is an adviser, as is the AFL-CIO. TPP’s text is kept secret from Congress.
There’s a big reason for that, the panelists warn: The proposed text could literally upend and invalidate virtually every protection U.S. law gives workers, citizens and consumers, from acts of Congress on down to local ordinances.
TPP would let the multi-nationals challenge and overturn “any law, regulation, requirement, procedure or practice” that a company – bypassing a national government – believes restrains trade, Peres added, quoting from leaked pact text.
“What they want is to set the rules of the game so that they can get the government – any government – out of their way,” Peres said of interests pushing TPP.
If TPP goes through, firms “wouldn’t have to deal with such local issues as food safety standards, labor standards and environmental standards. TPP is not a trade agreement, but an economic integration agreement,” for corporate interests’ benefit.
TPP would also let firms get away with undercutting U.S. workers by paying rock-bottom wages and exporting exploited workers’ goods to the U.S. without restrictions, Peres said. The current U.S. minimum wage, he noted, works out to $56 for an 8-hour day. The daily minimum in Malaysia, a TPP nation, is $8.70, compared to $4.59 in China – which is not in TPP – and $2.23 in Vietnam.
“All U.S. laws would have to conform” to the TPP’s rules, even down to the local level, adds Lori Wallach, director of Public Citizen’s Trade Campaign. That would eliminate everything from ‘Buy American’ state laws to community zoning ordinances, if the complaining firm feels they “restrain trade,” she said. Peres added prevailing wage laws and state laws banning purchases from human rights and worker rights violators.
And when a company sues under TPP, Wallach adds, it would go not to an open court, but to a secret 3-person tribunal. The tribunal would be trade lawyers “who know nothing about these other issues” and their decision is binding upon the loser. “And the companies would get to name one” of the three “judges,” Wallach warned.
“It’s a bad, bad deal for us, but it’s a great deal for globally integrated corporations,” Peres summed up.
TPP can be stopped by halting the pact even before Obama sends it to Congress. “By the time it comes up there, it may already be too late,” Wallach said. If the U.S. rejects it, TPP falls apart, “because we’re the linchpin,” another panelist noted.
Instead, workers, citizens and consumers must pressure lawmakers to deny Obama so-called “fast track,” formally called trade promotion authority. Presidents used fast track for NAFTA and other such pacts. Fast track lets a president bargain for trade pacts such as TPP, then jam laws implementing them through Congress by simple majority votes in each house, without amendments and on just one up-or-down vote.
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Please take time to think about from where you get your political news. Think about all the news organizations and political pundits that are calling themselves 'Progressive' and/or pretend to be shouting for the middle/lower class. If your pundit or news outlet has not made these two issues front and center as BAD for America for the last few years....they are not Progressive.....they are Third Way corporate. Third Way is trying everything it knows to capture media and it creates non-profits that are wolves in sheep's clothing. PLEASE FIND A REAL PROGRESSIVE OUTLET FOR NEWS!!!! You can check some of my listings or follow my Facebook Page....Cindy Walsh/Baltimore to see who is dishing news for labor and justice!!!
IF A MEDIA OUTLET IS NOT TELLING YOU THIRD WAY POLITICIANS ARE THE PROBLEM.....THEY ARE WORKING AGAINST LABOR AND JUSTICE!!!
Below you see one of the most progressive and labor/justice news outlets I see today. They reference other good outlets. Work hard to get the truth.....do not allow a captured media feed you propaganda!!!
Truthout
works to spark action by revealing systemic injustice and providing a platform for transformative ideas, through in-depth investigative reporting and critical analysis. With a powerful, independent voice, we will spur the revolution in consciousness and inspire the direct action that is necessary to save the planet and humanity.
Our Organization Truthout is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization dedicated to providing independent news and commentary on a daily basis. In order to remain free of bias and adhere to high editorial standards, we accept no advertising or corporate backing. Instead, we depend on our readers to support our work. All donations to Truthout are tax-deductible. For more information about our model and how we utilize our resources, please read our annual report. To donate to Truthout, click here.
Truthout
works to spark action by revealing systemic injustice and providing a platform for transformative ideas, through in-depth investigative reporting and critical analysis. With a powerful, independent voice, we will spur the revolution in consciousness and inspire the direct action that is necessary to save the planet and humanity.
Our Organization Truthout is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization dedicated to providing independent news and commentary on a daily basis. In order to remain free of bias and adhere to high editorial standards, we accept no advertising or corporate backing. Instead, we depend on our readers to support our work. All donations to Truthout are tax-deductible. For more information about our model and how we utilize our resources, please read our annual report. To donate to Truthout, click here.
There are two major policy agendas unfolding right now. One has to do with deconstructing the domestic social infrastructure and the other has to do with constructing the new social infrastructure. This is what Third Way corporate democrats call The New Economy. What it means is that the US will no longer be a sovereign nation of the people, by the people, for the people. It will be part of a global entity ruled by global corporations. DO YOU SEE WHAT THIRD WAY CLINTON DID TO AMERICA? DO YOU REALLY WANT TO VOTE FOR HILLARY, BIDEN, CUOMO, OR O'MALLEY.....ALL THIRD WAY CORPORATE POLITICIANS?
Below you see the Simpson-Bowles plan for budget reduction. Remember, the national debt was created by massive corporate fraud but these politicians are prepared to have the public pay down the debt by lost wages, benefits, retirements, and lost public assets and services. The downsizing of government is so severe as regards domestic spending and the budget moves so heavily to security, whether Homeland Security, National Security, and the military that you see where America is moving towards being no different than other second world dictatorships. They are breaking all regulatory agencies, all public justice agencies, all social services agencies down and replacing them with charitable groups like churches and non-profits just as in the Medieval days. Go to the poor house or beg at the church is what you see unfolding. Keep in mind these policies are being implemented by a democratically elected President running as a Democrat. We see that Third Way is corporate and wealth.....they are not labor and justice as is 80% of the democratic base. WE SIMPLY NEED TO TAKE BACK CONTROL OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY TO REVERSE THIS DIRECTION!!! IT CAN FALL BACK TO A DEMOCRACY IN SEVERAL YEARS TIME IF WE:
VOTE THESE INCUMBENTS OUT OF OFFICE AND RUN AND VOTE FOR LABOR AND JUSTICE CANDIDATES NEXT ELECTIONS!!
When you listen to these talks of compromise regarding the revenue neutral reduction of the corporate tax rate in exchange for cuts to social safety nets we know the subsidies and loopholes come right back. When they speak of raising capital gains taxes we know that corporations are becoming so rich.....albeit by massive fraud......that they will be taking all corporations private. There will be no stock market with publicly traded companies as we know it today. Corporate executives are busy using the Federal Reserve's 0% interest loans to buy back their own stock.
ALL OF WHAT YOU HEAR THESE POLS DISCUSSING IS SMOKE AND MIRRORS AS THEY COMPLETELY CONSTRUCT ANOTHER SOCIAL STRUCTURE THAT DOES NOT INVOLVE YOU AND I. Third Way corporate democrats are just as intent as republicans in getting rid of all that is New Deal and War on Poverty.....they see labor and justice as issues that take away from corporate profits and are moving to eliminate them.
The second article looks at the Pacific Rim Trade Agreement. This has been in the works for over 10 years and is about to make its debut. This is what drives Immigration reform, the restructuring of government under the guise of government debt, and the elimination of social safety nets. Third Way politicians are moving America in line with developing countries as regards quality of life, lack of justice, and autocracy and that is towards what the trade agreements move us. What they are doing is unconstitutional. Capitol Hill and the President does not have the authority to enter international agreements that threaten sovereignty or a citizen's right to participate in legislating through elected officials. THIS RIGHT OF CITIZENS AS LEGISLATORS IS THE FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLE OF THE CONSTITUTION AND THESE INTERNATIONAL TRADE AGREEMENTS COMPLETELY IGNORE ALL OF THOSE RIGHTS.
They are trying to eliminate the people's ability to change any law that is part of these trade agreements....which includes every aspect of public policy. Whether labor, environment, taxes, health care and education.....these agreements try to standardize all international laws for all participating nations. The overall effect is to bring first world countries down to second and third world status so as to meet conditions of the developing world. They intend to give global corporations the right to dictate what the business needs to be profitable with no citizen input. DO YOU SEE THAT HAPPENING NOW? YOU WOULD IF YOU LIVE IN A CITY LIKE BALTIMORE. IT HAS BEEN HAPPENING HERE FOR OVER A DECADE AND MARYLAND'S GOVERNOR O'MALLEY IS THE TEAM PLAYER FOR THESE POLICIES!
This was all the grand plan put into action during Reagan Thatcher of empire-building and Ayn Rand style wealth inequity. It took Bill Clinton and Third Way to capture the people's party.....the Democratic Party to hand it to corporate interests moving this corporate rule forward. REMEMBER, THESE POLS ARE TRAINED TO LIE. THEY WILL TELL YOU WHAT YOU WANT TO HEAR AND THEN DO WHAT THEY WANT. STOP LISTENING TO THEM!!!
WE CAN REVERSE THIS MOVEMENT TOWARDS EMPIRE SIMPLY BY RUNNING OUR OWN CANDIDATES IN ELECTIONS AND STOP LETTING THE DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL PARTY SELECT THE CANDIDATE......WHO WILL BE THIRD WAY.
RUN AND VOTE FOR LABOR AND JUSTICE NEXT ELECTIONS!!!
Simpson-Bowles 2.0 By Stephen Lendman on April 29, 2013 7:37 pm
Both men represent the nation’s ruling class. They want more wealth transferred from ordinary people to corporate America and privileged elites like themselves. They’re back with plan B. More on that below.
On February 18, 2010, Obama issued Executive Order 13531. It established the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform (NCFRR).
Two neoliberal ideologues head it: former Senator Alan Simpson (R. WY) and former Clinton White House chief of staff Erskine Bowles.
They head a 19-member team. It’s stacked with like-minded members. Their mandate then and now includes fiscal austerity for most people, unlimited wealth opportunities for corporate America and super-rich elites.
Plan A includes:
• ending or capping middle class tax breaks; home mortgage interest deductions and tax-free employer provided healthcare insurance are targeted;
• taxing capital gains and dividends the same as ordinary income;
• lowering income tax rates to 9, 15 and 24%; currently they range from 10 – 39.6%;
• slashing corporate tax rates from the top 35% rate to 26%; eliminating some deductions was proposed;
• making the research and development tax credit permanent;
• making deep Medicare cuts; increasing Medicaid co-pays; eliminating $54 billion from graduate medical education; and enacting “comprehensive tort reform;” doing so makes it harder for aggrieved patients to file malpractice suits;
• raising the Social Security retirement age to 69 by 2075; reducing cost-of-living increases; they’re now based on annual inflation rates; raising the payroll tax ceiling to $200,000; high-income earners benefit most;
• eliminating 10% of federal workers by 2015; doing so increases unemployment when reducing it should be prioritized;
• raising the federal gasoline tax by 15 cents a gallon; imposing “user fees” on motorists; at issue is having ordinary people fund the federal transportation and highway spending program; and
• cutting $100 billion in military spending; targeted are administration inefficiencies, weapons Pentagon officials don’t want, overseas force contingent drawdowns, and medical benefits for military retirees through less care and/or higher premiums and co-pays;
By 2020, NCFRR proposed cutting about $3.8 trillion. Doing so harms ordinary Americans at a time helping them should be prioritized.
Austerity is official policy. Republicans and Democrats agree. Major cuts are planned. They’re coming. Obama demands them.
Simpson and Bowles (SB) are back. On April 18, the Washington Post headlined “New Bowles-Simpson plan takes aim at deficit,” saying:
They’re “back in Washington with a new message for the nation’s policymakers: You’ve done the easy stuff. You’ve done the stupid stuff. Now it’s time to get serious.”
They briefed lawmakers on their latest plan. It proposes “far less in new taxes” and much greater Medicare cuts. It urges replacing across-the-board sequester reductions by hitting ordinary people hardest.
It eliminates the legal cap on government borrowing. It recommends letting the Treasury “keep borrowing as long as the debt does not grow as a percentage of the nation’s economy.”
It argues for $2.5 trillion more in taxes. It also wants cuts over and above what’s already agreed on. According to Bowles:
“I think this is our last chance. I don’t think there’s any chance after the end of the fiscal year because we’ll be back into politics again.”
“We’ve done the easy stuff. We put a cap on discretionary spending, and we raised taxes on rich people. What else are we going to do.”
Fact check
Medicare and Social Security are fiscally sound. Minor adjustments only are needed to keep them that way.
Since 1979, America’s top 1% tripled its share of national income. It went from 8% to about 24%. It keeps rising annually.
From 1993 – 2000, top earners got 45% of income growth. From 2000 – 2008, they got 65%. In 2010, it was 93%. Corporations also benefitted hugely.
From 1998 – 2007, corporate profits rose 10% a year on average. In 2009 and 2010, they increased 243%. Excluded are sheltered amounts offshore.
In 2012, corporate profits were 12.4% of GDP. It was the highest level since WW II. At the same time, worker compensation hit a 57-year low.
Increased sales didn’t produce profits. Cost-cutting did on the backs of workforces. Jobs, wages, benefits, and hours worked suffered. Productivity rose. Companies are producing more goods and services at less cost.
In 2011, profit margins reached their highest level in over 80 years. Federal, state, and local government tax cuts benefitted bottom line performance. In 2012, profit margins increased further. They grew by 7.6% compared to 4.6% the previous year.
High income households benefitted proportionately. They did so through equity appreciation, dividends, interest, rents, and other wealth increasing methods.
In contrast, ordinary people lost out hugely. Increasingly they’re hard-pressed to get by. Force-fed austerity promises worse.
Cutting Medicare harms seniors when they most need help. Claiming it’s going broke don’t wash. Healthcare overall is unaffordable.
Further cuts make it more so when most needed. Illnesses will go untreated. Pain, suffering and early deaths will follow. Bipartisan contempt for ordinary people assures it. Simpson-Bowles 2.0 ups the stakes further.
It proposes another $2.4 trillion in savings over 10 years. Around $2.7 trillion was enacted. It includes about $600 billion in new revenue.
It recommends a Social Security COLA based on chain-weighted CPI. It’s a scam. It’s the latest gimmick to destroy benefits.
It assumes when prices on some products rise, consumers choose lower-cost substitutes. Perhaps so for steak v. hamburger.
It doesn’t hold for rents, other housing costs, transportation, gasoline, electricity and other energy costs, as well as medical expenses. They’re highest late in life.
Simpson-Bowles (SB) proposes a new $550 Medicare Parts A and B annual deductible. They also want 80% coverage for Part A instead of the current 100%.
Doing so requires another $150 – $300 private insurance cost. Part B works that way now. If seniors want current benefits, they’ll have to pay more. Otherwise they lose out.
At issue is rationing healthcare. It’s already unaffordable. Ahead it’ll be more so. Cutting Social Security benefits compounds the problem.
SB also wants Medicare eligibility raised to age 67. At issue is leaving low-income 65 and 66-year-old seniors uninsured. It also proposed other non-defense discretionary (NDD) cuts. Doing so hits disadvantaged households hardest.
It targets Title I education for low-income students, Head Start, Pell Grants, low-income housing assistance, help for the homeless, and WIC nutrition programs.
On April 28, Simpson and Bowles wrote a Washington Post op-ed titled “A grand bargain is still possible. Here’s how,” saying:
“To be sure, some progress has been made the past two years. Policymakers have enacted about $2.7 trillion in deficit reduction….”
“Yet what we have achieved so far is insufficient. Nothing has been done to make our entitlement programs sustainable for future generations, make our tax code more globally competitive and pro-growth, or put our debt on a downward path.”
It bears repeating. Medicare and Social Security are fiscally sound. They’re not entitlements. They’re contractual federal obligations. They’re for eligible recipients who qualify. They’re insurance programs. Payroll taxes fund them.
Obama’s new budget reflects the worst of neoliberal harshness. It’s economically destructive. It’s another wealth transfer scheme. It hits ordinary households hardest.
Simpson and Bowles said it doesn’t go far enough. “That’s why we released a new plan” to go further, they said. It’s not “ideal,” they admitted. It’s not the only plan.
“It is an effort to show that a deal is possible in which neither side compromises its principles but instead relies on principled compromise.”
“Such a deal would invigorate our economy, demonstrate to the public that Washington can solve problems and leave a better future for our grandchildren.”
Simpson and Bowles reflect the worst of political Washington. They do so when around 23% of Americans are unemployed. Poverty, homelessness and hunger approach record levels.
They propose increasing the greatest wealth disparity in US. The gap between rich and poor is unprecedented.
They want America’s social contract destroyed. Force-fed austerity assures it. The criminal class in Washington is bipartisan. Simpson and Bowles are members in good standing. They’re point men for the worst of what’s coming. Better times are distant memories.
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.
His new book is titled “Banker Occupation: Waging Financial War on Humanity.”
http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanII.html
Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.
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We are organizing now to fight this assault on US national sovereignty. It is illegal....it is unconstitutional....and it undermines all of the protections of citizenship. It is nothing less that a coup-d'etat......We will need to take these trade agreements to court and to the Supreme Court to stop this usurping of national sovereignty!!
NOW YOU SEE WHY THEY ARE SIMPLY SUSPENDING RULE OF LAW AND SUCKING ALL PUBLIC MONEY TO THE TOP OPENLY AND FREELY.
We are hearing the 1% say that this will be Obama's LEGACY....
Transpacific Pact Worse Than People Realize
Apr 29, 2013
Press Associates, Inc. (PAI) – 4/26/2013
By Mark Gruenberg
PAI Staff Writer
WASHINGTON (PAI)—The proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a planned “free trade” pact that’s a top trade goal of the Democratic Obama administration, is far worse than predecessor pacts – and far worse than even its foes realize.
And that led a panel at Green Jobs, Good Jobs conference in mid-April to urge listeners to stop TPP before it starts, by denying President Barack Obama unlimited, unfettered authority to bargain any trade pacts without input from anyone else.
Congress took its first whack at TPP at an April 24 Senate Finance Committee hearing. Finance is one of two committees that would consider legislation to implement the TPP once Obama negotiates and signs it. Business interests, led by the Chamber of Commerce, were scheduled to testify to senators. Workers and their allies weren’t.
The TPP issue is important to workers, speakers said, because it presents a distinct threat to labor standards, environmental rules and even such simple things as whether a company can erect a factory in your back yard, without your permission.
Obama wants to present a completed TPP to Congress by October, reported Ken Peres, a top economist for the Communications Workers. He added TPP is a top goal of multi-national corporations who owe no allegiance to the U.S. or workers.
“The point of their agenda is to attack what they view as obstacles: Government and labor,” Peres said. “This gives you an idea of why corporations want to push this agreement.”
Hear Peres discuss the importance of labor working with environment on issues like the TPP.
Like other prior trade pacts, TPP would supposedly rip down tariff and other barriers in the U.S. and the other nations involved. Those 11 nations range from developed and advanced Australia and New Zealand to low-wage low-cost Vietnam.
It’s unfinished, but TPP already draws flak from unions and workers. The AFL-CIO, the Communications Workers, the Steel Workers and the Auto Workers oppose Japan’s bid to join the talks, citing its high trade barriers and refusal to allow imports, its currency manipulation, and the labor law-breaking by Japanese firms in the U.S.
And some 600 companies, including many multi-nationals, are “advisers” to U.S. bargainers, and get to see proposed U.S. text of the TPP. But only one consumer group is an adviser, as is the AFL-CIO. TPP’s text is kept secret from Congress.
There’s a big reason for that, the panelists warn: The proposed text could literally upend and invalidate virtually every protection U.S. law gives workers, citizens and consumers, from acts of Congress on down to local ordinances.
TPP would let the multi-nationals challenge and overturn “any law, regulation, requirement, procedure or practice” that a company – bypassing a national government – believes restrains trade, Peres added, quoting from leaked pact text.
“What they want is to set the rules of the game so that they can get the government – any government – out of their way,” Peres said of interests pushing TPP.
If TPP goes through, firms “wouldn’t have to deal with such local issues as food safety standards, labor standards and environmental standards. TPP is not a trade agreement, but an economic integration agreement,” for corporate interests’ benefit.
TPP would also let firms get away with undercutting U.S. workers by paying rock-bottom wages and exporting exploited workers’ goods to the U.S. without restrictions, Peres said. The current U.S. minimum wage, he noted, works out to $56 for an 8-hour day. The daily minimum in Malaysia, a TPP nation, is $8.70, compared to $4.59 in China – which is not in TPP – and $2.23 in Vietnam.
“All U.S. laws would have to conform” to the TPP’s rules, even down to the local level, adds Lori Wallach, director of Public Citizen’s Trade Campaign. That would eliminate everything from ‘Buy American’ state laws to community zoning ordinances, if the complaining firm feels they “restrain trade,” she said. Peres added prevailing wage laws and state laws banning purchases from human rights and worker rights violators.
And when a company sues under TPP, Wallach adds, it would go not to an open court, but to a secret 3-person tribunal. The tribunal would be trade lawyers “who know nothing about these other issues” and their decision is binding upon the loser. “And the companies would get to name one” of the three “judges,” Wallach warned.
“It’s a bad, bad deal for us, but it’s a great deal for globally integrated corporations,” Peres summed up.
TPP can be stopped by halting the pact even before Obama sends it to Congress. “By the time it comes up there, it may already be too late,” Wallach said. If the U.S. rejects it, TPP falls apart, “because we’re the linchpin,” another panelist noted.
Instead, workers, citizens and consumers must pressure lawmakers to deny Obama so-called “fast track,” formally called trade promotion authority. Presidents used fast track for NAFTA and other such pacts. Fast track lets a president bargain for trade pacts such as TPP, then jam laws implementing them through Congress by simple majority votes in each house, without amendments and on just one up-or-down vote.
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Please take time to think about from where you get your political news. Think about all the news organizations and political pundits that are calling themselves 'Progressive' and/or pretend to be shouting for the middle/lower class. If your pundit or news outlet has not made these two issues front and center as BAD for America for the last few years....they are not Progressive.....they are Third Way corporate. Third Way is trying everything it knows to capture media and it creates non-profits that are wolves in sheep's clothing. PLEASE FIND A REAL PROGRESSIVE OUTLET FOR NEWS!!!! You can check some of my listings or follow my Facebook Page....Cindy Walsh/Baltimore to see who is dishing news for labor and justice!!!
IF A MEDIA OUTLET IS NOT TELLING YOU THIRD WAY POLITICIANS ARE THE PROBLEM.....THEY ARE WORKING AGAINST LABOR AND JUSTICE!!!
Below you see one of the most progressive and labor/justice news outlets I see today. They reference other good outlets. Work hard to get the truth.....do not allow a captured media feed you propaganda!!!
Truthout
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