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The War On YOU

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July 26, 2010

The fifth annual conclave of the Netroots Nation (a group of liberal bloggers) took place in Las Vegas last week.  Among the stories emerging from that event was the plea that progressive bloggers “quit beating up on Obama”.  I found this very amusing.  After Obama betrayed his supporters by pushing through a faux healthcare “reform” bill, which lacked the promised “public option” and turned out to be a giveaway to big pharma and the health insurance industry – the new President turned the long-overdue, financial “reform” bill into yet another hoax.

As I pointed out on July 12, Mike Konczal of the Roosevelt Institute documented the extent to which Obama’s Treasury Department undermined the financial reform bill at every step.  On the following day, Rich Miller of Bloomberg News examined the results of a Bloomberg National Poll, which measured the public’s reaction to the financial reform bill.  Almost eighty percent of those who responded were of the opinion that the new bill would do little or nothing to prevent or mitigate another financial crisis.  Beyond that, 47 percent shared the view that the bill would do more to protect the financial industry than consumers.  Both healthcare and financial “reform” legislation turned out to be “bait and switch” scams used by the Obama administration against its own supporters.  After that double-double-cross, the liberal blogosphere was being told to “pay no attention to that man behind the curtain”.

Despite the partisan efforts by Democrats to blame our nation’s economic decline exclusively on the Bush administration, reading between the lines of a recent essay by Senator Bernie Sanders provides some insight on how the problem he discusses has festered during the Obama administration:

The 400 richest families in America, who saw their wealth increase by some $400 billion during the Bush years, have now accumulated $1.27 trillion in wealth.  Four hundred families!  During the last fifteen years, while these enormously rich people became much richer their effective tax rates were slashed almost in half.  While the highest-paid 400 Americans had an average income of $345 million in 2007, as a result of Bush tax policy they now pay an effective tax rate of 16.6 percent, the lowest on record.

Let me get this straight  .  .  .   Is Senator Sanders telling us that it took the 400 families the entire eight Bush years just to pick up $400 billion and that once Obama came to the White House, those families were able to pick up another $827 billion in less than two years?  In fairness, Senator Sanders made a great argument to reinstate what I call, “the tax on dead millionaires”.  He began by discussing  the harsh reality experienced by mere mortals:

And while the Great Wall Street Recession has devastated the middle class, the truth is that working families have been experiencing a decline for decades.

Nevertheless, to understand how the middle class has been destroyed by those 400 families, their corporate alter egos and the lobbyists they employ, one need not rely on the words of a Senator, who is an “avowed socialist” (a real one – not just someone called a socialist by partisan blowhards).  Consider, for example, a great essay by Phil Davis, avowed capitalist and self-described “serial entrepreneur”.  The title of the piece might sound familiar:  “It’s the End of the World As We Know It”.  Mr. Davis discussed the latest battle in the war against Social Security and the current efforts to raise the retirement age to 70:

So, what is this all about?  It’s about forcing 5M people a year who reach the age 65 to remain in the work-force.  The top 0.01% have already taken your money, they have already put you in debt, they have already bankrupted the government as well so it has no choice but to do their bidding.  Now the top 0.01% want to make even MORE profits by paying American workers even LESS money.  If they raise the retirement age to 70 to “balance” Social Security – that will guarantee that another 25M people remain in the workforce (less the ones that drop dead on the job – saving the bother of paying them severance).

Those who believe that President Obama would never let this happen need look no further than a recent posting by Glenn Greenwald (a liberal Constitutional lawyer – just like our President) at Salon.com:

It is absolutely beyond the Republicans’ power to cut Social Security, even if they retake the House and Senate in November, since Obama will continue to wield veto power.  The real impetus for Social Security cuts is from the “Deficit Commission” which Obama created in January by Executive Order, then stacked with people (including its bipartisan co-Chairs) who have long favored slashing the program, and whose recommendations now enjoy the right of an up-or-down vote in Congress after the November election, thanks to the recent maneuvering by Nancy Pelosi.  The desire to cut Social Security is fully bipartisan (otherwise it couldn’t happen) and pushed by the billionaire class that controls the Government.

Despite the efforts to characterize Social Security as an “entitlement program” – it’s not.  It’s something you have already paid for – as documented by your income tax returns and W-2 forms.  Pay close attention and watch how our one-party system, controlled by the Republi-cratic Corporatist Party  steals that money away from you.  Both Phil Davis and Glenn Greenwald have each just given you a big “heads-up”.  What are you going to do about it?




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