Mike Pence Is Human Garbage
Stop negotiating with the GOP. There is a thin line between compromise and collaboration.
Supply side economics is a lie
Republicans offer tax cuts to the richest one percent. Then they act surprised that the budget deficit has increased 25 percent since Trump took office. Then they demand cuts in spending, austerity, because "we can't live beyond our means." It's a trick as old as the Reagan administration.
Trump last month gave a presidential medal of freedom to Arthur Laffer who invented Supply Side Economics for the Reagan administration.
Laffer, a fraud, insists tax cuts for the rich generates so much economic activity that the revenue pouring in balances our budget. George Herbert Walker Bush called it “voodoo economics” until Reagan made him his Vice President.
Our Treasury Secretary, Steve Mnuchin just warned we’ll be out of cash by September. We’re going to have to debate the debt ceiling again, and we're going to have to cut spending. We're out of money, because the 2017 tax cuts for the rich emptied our coffers.
The country's broke. Not because of spending, because of Arthur Laffer, and the lie of Supply Side economics.
Say anything to keep your wealth
Supply Side economics has always been a lie designed to make the rich richer. It's a lie designed to destroy the federal government because the rich have always hated the federal government for the same reason muggers hate the police. If you starve the IRS, you don't get audited. If you starve the Justice Department then Alan Dershowitz and Ken Starr can keep you from going to jail for running an interstate child molestation racket.
The Facts:
Supply Side economics under Reagan tripled our debt from $900 billion to $2.7 trillion. George Herbert Walker Bush became president, raised taxes, and the GOP turned on him because he was a traitor to his class.
Clinton came next, and I’ll get to him in a second. But it’s important to remember that when Bush’s idiot son became president he slashed the estate tax and gave the richest one percent massive tax cuts. Then he launched an illegal invasion of Iraq promising to pay for it by lowering taxes for the rich, because Arthur Laffer insists that lowering taxes for the rich stimulates the economy and that means more tax revenue. Alas, our debt doubled under George W. Bush.
Clinton left George W. Bush with a budget surplus
Of course, when Bush bankrupted the nation, the Democrats got blamed because "SPENDING was out of control." Even though Bill Clinton left George W. Bush with a budget SURPLUS. Yes, George W. Bush inherited a budget surplus from Clinton because Clinton raised taxes, and that tax hike, it turns out, STIMULATED the economy.
How come nobody talks about that?
Clinton when he came into office passed the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993. It mandated a 36 percent to 39.6 percent income tax for high-income individuals in the top 1.2% of wage earners.
But Republican Congressman Newt Gingrich voted against it. He wasn’t speaker yet, and he warned,
“The tax increase will kill jobs and lead to a recession, and the recession will force people off of work and onto unemployment and will actually increase the deficit.”
But once again Gingrich was wrong. A year later he was speaker.
The '93 tax hikes, coupled with George Herbert Walker Bush’s previous tax hikes STIMULATED the economy. The tax hikes ended the recession and ushered in an era of record growth that CREATED A BUDGET SURPLUS.
But Arthur Laffer is the one who gets a presidential medal last month.
CLINTON LEFT GEORGE W. BUSH WITH A BUDGET SURPLUS BECAUSE HE RAISED TAXES. SUPPLY SIDE ECONOMICS IS BULLSHIT.
Tax cuts for the rich endanger our lives
Tax cuts for the rich only help the rich, and these tax cuts choke off social services and destroy life saving agencies like FEMA.
Remember when Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005? After all those tax cuts for the rich and the war those tax cuts didn’t pay for, Americans in New Orleans discovered that there was no there, there. There was no federal government to save the people in New Orleans in 2005.
And so more than 2,000 Americans drowned, one million were displaced, because Bush’s tax cuts exhausted the federal government's ability to save Americans.
He really, really wanted to help, but the government's dick wouldn't work. Tax cuts for the rich choked off the flow of blood to the government's dick and thousands drowned, thousands got warehoused inside the Superdome, like prisoners, and 130,000 more migrated to Houston, where they were treated like criminals.
Blame the victims
Because they were primarily black, Republicans blamed their fate on welfare. Seriously! The GOP blamed welfare, and insisted welfare made African Americans from New Orleans too "irresponsible to get out of the way of a storm."
It only took three days after Katrina for Glenn Beck to call the African Americans trapped inside the Superdome “scumbags.”
So, Hurricane Katrina’s aftermath wasn’t blamed on climate change, or a FEMA stripped of funding because of tax cuts for the rich. Nope. Black people were to blame for living off welfare. That's the power of racism.
The richest one percent needs racism so the rest of us can blame African Americans and Mexicans for all our financial distress.
And now, after the 2017 tax cuts that once again rewarded the richest one percent and punished the rest of us with a 25 percent increase in the deficit, another storm is bearing down on New Orleans.
Hurricane Katrina Redux?
We have migrants in cages treated worse than any animal shelter would be allowed to hold cats and dogs. And we are once again not prepared to handle the deluge. The deluge from climate change, and the deluge of migrants escaping brutal regimes in Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador that our CIA has been propping up since the 1950s.
When the GOP screws up, and they always do, they blame the Democrats for, and get this, not funding their budget cuts. Yeah. It makes no sense. The GOP demands budget cuts to pay for the tax cuts. Instead of filibustering to death the tax cuts, the Democrats go along with austerity to pay for the tax cuts. The government then has no money, and then when it all hits the fan the GOP points a finger at the Democrats for agreeing to their budget cuts. Look at the concentration camps along the border? Why are they overcrowded? The GOP blames the Democrats for lack of funding. It’s quite impressive how the GOP can manipulate the conversation.
Mike Pence is not a Christian
And then Mike Pence, the devout Christian, visits these concentration camps yesterday, smells the rot of human flesh, and, just like a Nazi, insists those men in these cages are being "treated humanely." Like a Nazi, he warns us not to believe our own eyes, believe the official party line.
Pence wraps himself in Christ and the American flag while the richest one percent floats away from the rest of America, convinced they're immune from climate change or the race riots they're certain are only minutes away.
Racism, patriotism, Christian fundamentalism, blind obedience to both our military and police coupled with a "budgetary discipline" that hollows out America’s regulatory agencies along with tax cuts for the richest one percent is everything the GOP stands for. It’s also what fascists stand for.
This is fascism
This is fascism. 2.3 million Americans behind bars. Police kill unarmed black men with immunity. Perpetual war. And a neoliberal news media and academia immune to it all. We're there. It's not about to happen. We're there.
It's going to get worse. But we're already there. America has turned into every banana republic we propped up throughout the 70s. We're already there. Wealth inequality is far worse than any 70s era banana republic. We're already there. It gets worse. But we're already there.
The Democrats are primarily to blame
The only thing that can salvage this shit hole called America, where even the Federal Reserve admits half this country can't get its hands on $500, is a Democratic Party purged of Wall Street, purged of neoliberal academics and financial charlatans who refuse to admit to themselves that they are elitist racists.
The Democratic Party needs to represent the 99 percent. The Bidens, the Kamalas and the Mayor Petes are not for YOU. Obama wasn't for YOU. Clinton wasn't for YOU.
The GOP is a party of scorpions, always has been. You can't blame them for their sting. It’s the Democrat’s fault for trying to win elections by appealing to the GOP’s base.
The solution?
The Democrats must stand for the 99 percent and fight the lies. We are more powerful than any special interests. What we lack is a political party that speaks for us.
My first choice is Bernie, my second choice is Warren. Everybody else is mortal threat to our party’s future. More of the same is no future.
If you disagree with any of this, you need to cancel Netflix and pick up a book because you're an ignoramus.