Unfair Taxes and Other Failings!
Not so long ago we had representational taxation. One paid taxes in proportion to one's income. Since the 19th century Republicans have been attacking taxes in general and promoting domination of our democracy by the superrich. The Roosevelts, Teddy and FDR, rescued our democracy from plutocracy, i.e. rule by the wealthy:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plutocracy
This departure from democratic justice has been long in the picture, but was given its current boost by Reagan's attack on government regulation and the Bush/Cheney set up for an economic disaster by their tax cuts and war spending.
Obama is not an economist and his choices to direct our economy were not good. He needs a whole new game plan if he and our nation are to survive, let alone prosper. People who are going to be hurt by the freeze on economic assistance unhappily stayed home and did not vote. A freeze on our budgets is going to harm our most needed instrumentalities -- medicine (45,000 of us die each year because we can not afford medical care). Our education systems are crashing. We are wasting monies on unwinnable wars. The drastic cut in police will further put our security at risk. The animosities generated against Muslims will silence them when we most need their information. A failure to admit non heterosexuals to our military will block some of our most talented people who know the languages of nations with which we are dealing.
I listen to npr to get to sleep nights, but the early reports by the BBC
are totally depressing and so I migrate to our computer where the news is at least more detailed, if as depressing. I wonder where Obama gets his sources of information? At least Bush had the smarts to replace a failing team. Obama had no time to adjust to the disasters left behind, so he tended to follow the leads already started by his predecessors -- wars and minimal expenditure of funds, much more of which were need from government to get us moving at a faster pace.
Needless to say we have been enduring additional disasters -- BP, bridges falling, and the Republican claim that they have kept us secure -- totally omitting 9/11 about which Bush/Cheney were warned by a bi-party study as they came into office. I would hate to tally the lives needlessly lost during those eight years -- nor want to guess how many will be lost during the next several. A nuclear bomb exploded in the middle of one of our major cities or the drastic failure of one of our aging nuclear plants ... one in Vermont and Indian Point just north of NYC had to be shut down the other day because of failures.
I would hate to be in Obama's shoes now -- or those of any American President in these hard and dangerous times.
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent [blind copies]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plutocracy
This departure from democratic justice has been long in the picture, but was given its current boost by Reagan's attack on government regulation and the Bush/Cheney set up for an economic disaster by their tax cuts and war spending.
Obama is not an economist and his choices to direct our economy were not good. He needs a whole new game plan if he and our nation are to survive, let alone prosper. People who are going to be hurt by the freeze on economic assistance unhappily stayed home and did not vote. A freeze on our budgets is going to harm our most needed instrumentalities -- medicine (45,000 of us die each year because we can not afford medical care). Our education systems are crashing. We are wasting monies on unwinnable wars. The drastic cut in police will further put our security at risk. The animosities generated against Muslims will silence them when we most need their information. A failure to admit non heterosexuals to our military will block some of our most talented people who know the languages of nations with which we are dealing.
I listen to npr to get to sleep nights, but the early reports by the BBC
are totally depressing and so I migrate to our computer where the news is at least more detailed, if as depressing. I wonder where Obama gets his sources of information? At least Bush had the smarts to replace a failing team. Obama had no time to adjust to the disasters left behind, so he tended to follow the leads already started by his predecessors -- wars and minimal expenditure of funds, much more of which were need from government to get us moving at a faster pace.
Needless to say we have been enduring additional disasters -- BP, bridges falling, and the Republican claim that they have kept us secure -- totally omitting 9/11 about which Bush/Cheney were warned by a bi-party study as they came into office. I would hate to tally the lives needlessly lost during those eight years -- nor want to guess how many will be lost during the next several. A nuclear bomb exploded in the middle of one of our major cities or the drastic failure of one of our aging nuclear plants ... one in Vermont and Indian Point just north of NYC had to be shut down the other day because of failures.
I would hate to be in Obama's shoes now -- or those of any American President in these hard and dangerous times.
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent [blind copies]
posted by Ed Kent at 7:02 AM
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