A friend read my posts about the sessions Paul Ryan held on his proposed budget. Here is his comment about them:
I honestly haven't heard any real suggestions to reduce the debt. I am in favor of lots of the proposed social programs, especially some sort of health care for all, but how are they to be funded?
I am disappointed that we hear no real suggestion for reducing our National Debt from the other side of the aisle.
The National Debt of the Nation is terrible and its a burden we are leaving our children and grandchildren to solve. I fear that life for them will not be as good as life for us has been.
I believe this problem has no single solution but requires MORE taxes for the rich and the not so rich. I also believe we will all have to made some sacrifices.
Most important we need those in office opposed to Ryan's plan to make suggestions of there own and I believe the President needs to bring the sides together to address the problem of our unsustainable Debt. Without some sort of a solution on the debt we are headed in the same direction as Greece, Spain and Great Britain. If we continue as we are it wouldn't be long until we are a second rate nation.
I am disappointed that we hear no real suggestion for reducing our National Debt from the other side of the aisle.
The National Debt of the Nation is terrible and its a burden we are leaving our children and grandchildren to solve. I fear that life for them will not be as good as life for us has been.
I believe this problem has no single solution but requires MORE taxes for the rich and the not so rich. I also believe we will all have to made some sacrifices.
Most important we need those in office opposed to Ryan's plan to make suggestions of there own and I believe the President needs to bring the sides together to address the problem of our unsustainable Debt. Without some sort of a solution on the debt we are headed in the same direction as Greece, Spain and Great Britain. If we continue as we are it wouldn't be long until we are a second rate nation.
If we reject what Paul Ryan is suggesting as a means to reducing our National Debt and I am sure it is full of wrongs and faults, what than do we do to reduce a 14 trillion National Debt?
Here is my reply to my friend:
That's the fallacy of Ryan's plan. It doesn't reduce the debt. Many non-Republican accounts I've read say that his plan actually increases it. Here's what one Republican -- Reagan's budget director, David Stockman, who's hardly a flaming liberal -- says about it:
The other side of the aisle does have a proposal. You can read about it here:
And here is what the New York Times' Paul Krugman has to say about that plan:
You want to erase the debt? Here's how. Raise taxes--and close the loopholes that enable the richest and mega corporations to skate free. (A report in the news just yesterday said that 50 percent of the biggest corporations in this country paid no taxes last year.)
Start with the capital gains tax by making it apply to actual capital gains so it can't serve as a tax haven for millionaires' and billionaires' income. Hedgefunders who made billions in just one year--one took in $13 billion last year alone -- get away with claiming that income as capital gains, which is taxed at 15%, so they can keep from having it taxed at the highest income rate of 35%. (No wonder the multimillionaires in Congress want to reduce capital gains tax to zero!)
Second, end corporate charity, particularly to multinational companies that pay no -- zero -- taxes on the profits they make in the U.S. AND actually receive tax credits in the billions of dollars. Some, like oil companies, receive tax-funded subsidies DESPITE making record profits -- up from 21% to 46 % this past quarter from the previous quarter, which itself was a record-breaking quarter as has been every quarter in recent memory. Ryan voted to continue those credits and subsidies, but when asked why at the local town hall-type sessions he's held (some of which I attended) he obfuscates and turns the discussion to small businesses. Those are an entirely different animal and dear to the hearts of most average Americans -- and Ryan knows that, which is why he wants to talk about them and avoid having to explain why he pumps more and more welfare, funded by you and me, into the coffers of the rich. The rich have benefited greatly from this welfare that has become rampant since Reagan. Here are some interesting charts.
No wonder Congress doesn't want to change things.
Third, reform the healthcare industry, including some aspects of Medicare -- and that doesn't mean privatize it. I can't think of a single instance in which something was privatized or deregulated that benefited average, everyday people. Why the big push to privatize? It benefits corporate CEOs and other top execs, big-time investors, Wall Street and politicians who pander to them to get reelected and become multimillionaires themselves, thanks to fat campaign chests, money they get to keep if they don't spend it all on their campaigns.
Private companies have to make a profit -- and that's on top of their administrative costs, which are generally 10%-30% of their revenues. The only way they can do that is to pass those costs along to you and me. That's where healthcare costs have fallen off the rails. Hospitals, clinics, HMO's, etc. were not-for-profit until the industry caught Pres. Richard Nixon's attention and convinced him how wonderful it would be to allow the healthcare industry to be for-profit, thus Nixon's 1971 "New Health Strategy" and the birth of for-profit HMOs.
Granted, advanced techniques like MRIs and by-pass surgeries that weren't available in "the good old days" goose costs too, but a lot of that -- particularly in the pharma industry -- is simply b/c they can get away with it. Drugs that cost in the hundreds and even thousands of dollars a month for Americans are available in other countries for a fraction of that cost. Phamas claim those countries' governments subsidize those costs and that they (Phama companies) need to charge high prices so they can recoup their research and development costs, yet they fail to mention that much of those costs are already covered by government grants and other public funding. So the U.S. subsidizes drug costs too. The difference is the U.S. government a la laws and rules passed by Congress just gives the subsidies to the pharma companies instead of to patients.
Get industries with a vested interest, such as pharmas, out of the law-writing business. The Medicare Part D law was literally written by pharma company reps. And what did it get us? Big profits for pharma. The government (Medicare) law that was passed can't get competitive bids, can't buy less expensive from other countries, such as Canada. The bill had a huge gaping hole in the middle that futher enriched private industry but impoverished those on Medicare. They have to buy supplemental insurance to cover that hole--which it does only partially. So who benefited from that? Insurance companies.
Americans have been brainwashed into believing that privatizing is the American capitalistic way. Capitalism can be good if it doesn't run wild and turn into national cannibalism, which is the direction the country is currently headed. A healthy economy needs a population that can afford to buy the goods and services produced by the private sector. Thanks to unemployment, depressed pay, etc., that "buying public" is shrinking, and along with it tax revenue and other community benefits, such as public education.
Medicare's administrative cost is 3%. Social Security's is 1%. There is nothing and no way privatizing can approach that kind of operational costs. The way Medicare needs to be reformed is to establish a reporting mechinism that pays a percentage of the money wasted via fraud, duplication, etc., to whoever reports it. Medicare premiums, benefits and eligibility needs to be means tested. Why should taxes (you and me) pay for millionaires to be on Medicare? Ditch Part D completely and include perscriptions in regular Medicare like it is in other healthcare coverage plans with means-tested deductibles and co-pays.
That Medicare add-on is but one huge unfunded program Bush foisted onto this country. Others include the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. During WWII, not only did everyone share the sacrifice (well almost everyone, the ultra rich remained the ultra rich. I'm convinced those elites -- the true elites in this country, not acadmics or public employees or others the actual elites turn into punching bags as a way to keep us from retaliating against them -- will never have to ever feel any pain). But the country sold war bonds during WWII as a way to help finance the war. What did Bush do when he invaded Iraq? He told us to go shopping!
That's another way to help erase the enoumous debt Bush left us with. Sell war bonds now and dedicate the revenue to pay off the nation's debt. I attended a listening session last week held by two WI Democratic Assemblymen. At least half of those who spoke -- and they were all working, middle-class people, a couple of whom had young families -- said they were willing to pay more taxes if it would help the economy/debt situation. So, even though the affluent would consider those people schmucks and would scoff at the idea of buying something like a war bond that wouldn't pay off big dividends, if that listening session was any indication, a lot of civic-minded, patriotic middle Americans would.
This country has also been brainwashed into believing that taxes are evil and raising them is shear heresy. At the same time, the nostalia du jour is those wonderful, prosperous, Americana years of the 1950s. Ryan preaches cutting taxes and a flatter tax structure. Yet, ignored or denied is that the tax structure in the 1950s was anything but flat. Top income bracket was 90 percent. Here's an interesting chart:
If cutting taxes creates jobs and improves the economy, why did the economy go into a nose dive and unemployment start to soar after Bush's 2001 and 2003 tax cuts?
Here's what happened to jobs in this country after Bush cut taxes (in red) and after Obama took office (in blue).
Instead of any (R) plan that I've heard of erasing the debt or leaving those who come after us to pay it off, the policies they support simply continue to kick the can down the road. And, thanks to their ideology re: the environment, global warming, and conservation, all those children and grandchildren they're so worried about inflicting a national debt on will have higher rates of cancer, respiratory disorders and myriad other toxin- and pollution-induced illnesses.
But, don't get me started... 
No comments:
Post a Comment