manufactured crises , thwarting democracy, social safety
nets, and other thoughts on this government shitdown
Well this is so incredibly ridiculous, it is screaming for a
rant from me. It is also very
interesting, for it touches on so many subjects. Electoral politics, economics, poverty, filibusters, the
media, government spending, ….
Where to begin.
First off, if the Republicans believed in Democracy this crisis would
not have happened. If the House of
representatives was allowed to vote on a clean spending bill (to fund the
government without trying to attack other laws that have been passed), it most
likely would have passed with all Democrats and some Republicans voting for
it. Same thing today, if the House
was allowed to vote to raise the debt limit it would most likely pass. BUT, Speaker Boehner will not allow a
vote, even though he cannot get all his Republicans to agree on anything. He is purposefully thwarting the
democratic process and denying our elected representatives their chance to vote
on our behalf. As if there are not
enough real problems in this country for our government to be focused on, we
had to invent a crisis. Insane.
Another interesting aspect – Republicans are proving how
important government spending is.
Everyday we hear stories of how entire States are in trouble, small
businesses near national parks and military bases, lots of people are losing
tons of money, not just the employees , but the businesses with whom they spend
their money. Plus with the lack of
tourists coming to parks, money is not coming into these communities. Then you have things like emergencies
to deal with like storms or the recent death of thousands of cows due to
freezing weather, the fact the crab fishing season can’t start in Alaska
because noone can get permits, etc, essential government services that hard
working people depend on. And this
whole shutdown is because Republicans are so against government spending. Against spending on food stamps, social
security, health care, etc.
Meanwhile they fight raising the minimum wage, which would help the
working poor get off government assistance (A new report estimates employees of
the fast food industry cost tax payers $& billion every year in government
programs). Conservatives label
Democrats ‘tax and spend liberals’.
That seems like a good things to me. Especially when we have a third of world’s wealth and it is
concentrated in the hands of a tiny percentage of our population. You want the economy to
grow? Tax and spend. You want our
children to be well educated, well fed, and to have access to helth care? Tax and spend. You want money trickling down to small
busineeses around the nation, tax and spend. More on this later.
I see op-eds, hear statements, and
commentaries by Republicans and conservatives blaming Obama for the current
shutdown. Many (Darryl Issa for
example) have gone so far as to say Obama does nothing to lead, never
compromises with Republicans, is pushing an extreme socialist agenda, and is to
blame for a presidency riddled with crises – the fiscal cliff, the debt ceiling
debacle (former and upcoming), the current shutdown. This is simply insane.
The Republicans have caused all of these crises for the very reason they
claim Obama has, their lack of ability to compromise. Obama has bent over backwards to compromise every chance he
gets. WAY too much for most of us
progressives. Past crises were
caused because the Republicans refused to ANY tax increases. ANY. They cry about the debt. They holler about the deficit. But they won’t raise a single tax.
The Republicans want nothing but cuts – cuts to the social
safety net. First off, one of
their main targets, social security, does not contribute to the debt! Second, austerity is a terrible way to
revive an economy. Third, we have
already cut a ton – in fact many economists say we cut too much already. Fourth, the disparity between the rich
and the poor is the worst it has been in this country in a hundred years, if
not more. We have more childhood
hunger and people in poverty than any other wealthy nation!!! Hard working people cannot feed their
children. And the people who are
poor and who live on food stamps or on their small salaries, they can only
afford the worst most unhealthy processed food – made cheap by government
subsidies to corporations who grow things like corn that they then make into
corn syrup. The same Republicans
who want to (and recently did) cut billions from the very programs that are
barely feeding people, refuse to touch the subsidies payed to these
multinational corporations growing crops of grains to be processed into
cheap (and unhealthy) food
ingredients. Add this to the fact
fast food companies can pay so little that their employees often qualify for
government welfare (costing the government still more) and you artificially low
prices for unhelahty food.
We have been discussing all this in my class because the 7th
grade service theme is poverty and hunger. We just watched an incredible movie called “A Place At the
Table” about child hunger. One
thing these politicians lack, which my students have – empathy, empathy for
these people who are working hard and watching their children get sick and
starve because they can’t afford food.
And yet these Republicans are manufacturing crises so they
can demand cuts to the social safety net (which is barely a net anymore). Cuts to Medicare, Social Security,
SNAP. Meanwhile cuts to the
military – off the table. Tax
increases on the wealthy – off the table.
Cuts to subsidies to hugely profitable corporations – off the
table. And then they blame the
Democrats for not being willing to compromise. We spend almost as much on our military as the rest of
the world combined! America owns
over a third of all the wealth in the entire world and we have only five
percent of the population, yet we have the highest rate of childhood hunger in
all of the developed world. One of
my students said – “yeah, but it is easier to get rich, I mean very rich, in
America than it in places like Europe.
It is easier to be poor, but it is also easier to be really rich.” Yes, “that is true”, I said. “And some people think that is a very good thing.” They get rich by making everyone
else poor. There is only so much
money in the world. It can be distrubuted
equally or unequally or somewhere in between. Right now it is getting increasingly concentrated at the
top. The top 1% owns about 50% of
the wealth in the US, while the bottom 80% of the people share a sliver of the
pie – less than 8%. But while
Republicans complain that we are so irresponsible as a nation to run up our
debt, that our only choice is to take more money away from the poorest in this
country, we cannot even consider a tax increase on those that are doing just
fine (ok, better than just fine)
Our government is broken. There are people running our government who want it
broken. If you had a business,
would you hire someone who said “I think your business is the problem.” We are electing people who believe
government is the problem.
OF course they think private corporations are the answer. This is why they are driving the post
office out of business, for example.
They passed a low to require the post office to fund its pensions 70
years in advance – no private corporation has to do that. And after they break the government and
give contracts to private corporations, they go to work for those very
corporations making insane amounts of money. This revolving door is one of the main problems with our
system. Enough to talk about here
to save for another time.
It is crazy.
And of course this crisis also has been enabled by the
redistricting that Republicans made an effort to control. There are so many districts that are
drawn to make members from both parties safe that it is further polarizing the
house. Republicans are so safe
from Democratic challengers in most districts that they have no need to move to
the middle on issues. . Instead, they what they fear most is a
primary challenge from the far right, making them move to the right (or stay
there if they are one of these ‘Tea Party Party” members. It is giving a lot of power to this
small portion of the politicians who really hate the government’s social
programs. These are not the people
we should have running this incredible country! – There is alwys the hope that
working class and poor republicans will wake up and realize their party is not
representing them. The government
shut down fueled that hope. Also I
hpe these folks start signing up for better health care plans under Obamacare at
a more affordable price. Then lets
see what they think about the fools that try to repeal it.
Oh, and I wish they used the 'nuclear option' and got rid of the filibuster, this rule has been abused to thwart democracy and make government not work long enough. The Republicans filibuster things they would vote yes on, just because they want the government to have its hands tied behinds it back as long as there is a Dem in the White House. Their strategy is to make the Democrats look bad even if ruins the country, because if people throw out the Dems, there is only one other choice. Hence the main problem with the two party system. Noone benefits from working together.
Solutions:
Stop electing Republicans (getting harder with redistricting). Stop electing anyone who says they want
a government job because they think government is the problem. Tax and
spend! In a perfect world : get
rid of the filibuster, no campaign adds – just free time on public television –
for candidates, end the two party system by giving a percentage of seats in
congress based on percentage of votes a party gets, pass a law that says
government employees must wait five years to work in private industry
(especially if it is an industry over which they were overseeing or which they
wrote laws regarding)…ah, and how about educating our youth so they will be
more globally aware and able to make better political decisions – we stand
alone as a nation in our ignorance, which is ironic since our political
decisions affect the rest of the world like no other nation.
OK, end of rant, gotta go eat lunch!
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