QUOTES OF THE MONTH:
“The Republican Party…favors the privileged few and not the common, everyday man. Ever since its inception that Party has been under the control of special privilege, and they concretely proved it in the 80th Congress. They proved it by the things they did to the people and not for them. They proved it by the things they failed to do.”
President Harry Truman
1948 Nomination Speech
“…There’s nobody in this country who got rich on his own.”
Elizabeth Warren
Senate Candidate in Massachusetts
2011
Editor’s Note: The second article in our series on the “New Dark Age” follows. In the coming months, The Compass will focus upon 10 keys to understanding the “New Dark Age” in the United States. These indicators are:
- Growing poverty in the richest nation in the world
- Supply side economics
- Repeal of Glass-Steagall
- The Fairness Doctrine abandoned
- Demonizing government
- The “privatization” movement
- Voter suppression (See The Compass, vol. viii, no. 10)
- Religious extremism
- Politicizing the federal court system including the Supreme Court
- Muzzling the voice of science and the humanities
SENSE AND NONSENSE—THE TOP TEN SUPPLY SIDE LIES
From the editor: The most frequent lies promoting supply side economics…
The rich are job creators.
Tax cuts create economic growth.
Letting the Bush tax cuts expire is “class warfare.”
We can solve the debt crisis without increasing taxes.
Government regulations stifle business.
Public employees make more money than private sector employees.
“Bail outs” are bad.
The “Occupy Movement” is dead.
“Obamacare” will add $1 trillion to the deficit.
The poor are living in relative comfort.
Every time a Republican congressman has access to a camera, they claim that economic growth is produced when the rich and big business have more money. They are lying. The lie might be deliberate or it might be sloppy syntax. Either way, the above 10 statements are not true, and an elected representative of the American people has a duty and responsibility to know that they are not true. For some people, “lie” is a strong word. For me, it is not strong enough. Elected representatives may or may not believe what they are saying, even when they are given evidence to the contrary, but making statements such as those listed above does extraordinary damage to the public narrative.
The economy grows when demand grows. It stagnates when supply side grows at the expense of demand. The two drivers of economic growth are consumer demand and a strong, small-business entrepreneurial base. President Obama belatedly delivered his argument against supply side economics in Osawatomie, Kansas, December, 2011.
He said, “Remember in those years, in 2001 and 2003, Congress passed two of the most expensive tax cuts for the wealthy in history. And what did it get us? The slowest job growth in half a century. Massive deficits that have made it much harder to pay for the investments that built this country and provided the basic security that helped millions of Americans reach and stay in the middle class -- things like education and infrastructure, science and technology, Medicare and Social Security.”
He added, “Remember that in those same years, thanks to some of the same folks who are now running Congress, we had weak regulation, we had little oversight, and what did it get us? Insurance companies that jacked up people’s premiums with impunity and denied care to patients who were sick, mortgage lenders that tricked families into buying homes they couldn’t afford, a financial sector where irresponsibility and lack of basic oversight nearly destroyed our entire economy.”
The Story behind the Numbers
On May 10, 2011, in an interview on NBC’s Today Show, House Speaker John Boehner claimed the Bush tax cuts had created 8 million jobs over 10 years. The Bureau of Labor Statistics—keeper of the Current Employment Statistics (CES)—tells a quite different story.
Between June, 2001, and January, 2008, during the height of the Bush war of choice in Iraq and the housing boom, the employment rolls increased by 5.94 million, from 132 million employed to slightly less than 138 million employed. The full story, however, is not known until one looks at the next two years (still well within the 10-year period to which Boehner referred). Between January, 2008, at the top of the boom and February, 2010, at the bottom of the recession, the number of employed Americans fell precipitously from 137.9 million to 129.2 million—a loss of 8.75 million jobs. During the 8-plus years between June, 2001, and February, 2010, Bush administration policies such as deregulation and unprecedented deficit spending on wars and tax cuts actually lost almost 3 million jobs rather than creating 8 million. Boehner was off by a mere 11 million jobs.
If one looks strictly at the dates of the Bush administrations from January, 2001, to January, 2009, the United States still lost 653,000 private sector jobs on Bush’s watch. Even that statistic belies the claim that tax cuts create jobs. In addition, it ignores the fact that Bush inherited balanced budgets from the Clinton administration.
In contrast, between January, 2010, and August, 2011, during years two and three of the Obama administration, the private sector added 2.4 million jobs, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
All those Republicans who claim daily supply side economics will create jobs are blowing smoke at best and lying at worst. The actual numbers belie the claim. In this instance, Mark Twain’s refrain of “lies, damned lies, and statistics” does not apply. In the case against supply side economics, numbers do not lie. They reveal the truth. The supply side wizard behind the curtain in the Emerald City is a fraud.
Maynard Chapman, Editor
The Compass Newsletter
THE “26-60 OR BUST” PROJECT
From the editor:Having just published a series of articles on “Dangerous Lines to Cross” and beginning another series on the “New Dark Age,” it is time to talk about solutions to the problems we face as a nation. There really is only one solution to the political miasma in which we find ourselves:
THROW THE BUMS OUT! In this case, the “bums” are Republican ideologues with a ring in their collective noses being led around by unelected ideologues such as Grover Norquist, Karl Rove, and the Koch brothers.
Democrats need to gain 26 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives in 2012. And Democrats need to establish a super majority of at least 60 seats in the U.S. Senate. In 2012, Democrats need to re-take a majority in the House and Democrats need to secure a filibuster-proof Senate.
With this issue, The Compass is starting the 26-60 or Bust project. With echoes of President Polk’s “54-40 or Fight” campaign to save the Oregon Territory in 1844 and the “Pikes Peak or Bust” slogan adopted by miners in the Colorado gold rush of 1859, Democrats need to focus upon the practical and achievable goal of re-installing Nancy Pelosi as Speaker of the House and defusing the threat of filibuster in the Senate with at least a 60-seat majority.
The motivation for this project goes beyond President Truman’s observation that the Republican Party favors “the privileged few.”
There are basically two reasons that explain the nine percent approval rating of Congress. First, Republicans control the House of Representatives. Second, the tactic of the filibuster in the Senate allows rule by the minority party.
The tactic of brinksmanship by Republicans is made possible by Machiavellian politics exercised and led by House Speaker John Boehner and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. Brinksmanship was successful in December, 2010, when Obama extended the Bush tax cuts for two years; again in the spring when Republicans threatened to shut down the government over budget talks; and again in July when Republicans threatened to let the government go into default. It is being used almost daily to prevent confirmation of Obama appointees to the federal courts and to the Consumer Protection Agency. And brinksmanship is cynically being used to prevent passage of Obama’s jobs bill. Any legislation that Republicans feel can help the economy and/or create new jobs is being filibustered in the Senate or sabotaged in the House with ‘poison pill’ amendments.
The goal of the 26-60 or Bust project is to neutralize the tactic of brinksmanship in Congress so that problems can be solved. The path to success in this initiative is not that complicated. First, The Compass will be working to identify and publicize the most vulnerable seats in the House and Senate now occupied by Republicans. Second, we are asking our readers to help us do the research on vulnerable seats. Third, The Compass will be trying to enlist the aid of progressive candidates nationwide, such as Alan Grayson, who is running for a House seat in Florida. Fourth, The Compass will be working to get national attention for such an effort.
The 26-60 or Bust project is unabashedly partisan. And it might be a “bust” in the end. But this we know: Fifty million Americans have no health insurance. Forty-nine million people live at or below the poverty line of $22,113 per year for a family of four. Seventeen million children live in poor households. The average income of the top one-tenth of one percent of income earners (152,000 people making $5.6 million annually) rose 385% between 1970 and 2008. The average income of the bottom 90% of income earners (137.2 million people earning an average of $31,000 annually) decreased by one percent during the same period.
Our political system has been sold to the highest bidders. It is time to draw a political line in the sand that rescues Republicans from their own senseless greed.
Copyright © 2011, The Compass Society
www.compasssocietynews.com
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